What's Wrong With a Paladin?

[AnimeTheCat]

So, there's a thread (Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?530980-Do-You-DM-or-Play-with-Flair)), that is dangerously close to going off topic, but I'm genuinely curious to know where that topic is going so I want to start a new thread so it can be discussed freely.

The problem seems to be that a Paladin at a table forces the rest of the party to play a certain way. While that may be true in some cases, it isn't true in all, in my opinion.

What are some of the problems that people claim there are with a paladin? I'm just genuinely curious because they are one of my favorite classes and in the games that I've played in, there have never been any problems. I would, however, like to point out that the tables that I play at tend to talk about their characters openly and if someone really wants to play something evil, the other players don't play a paladin out of spite.

With the advent of Book of Exalted Deeds and essentially "other ways to play good", what are some of the lingering issues with playing a vanilla, LG, Paladin of Pelor or Heironeous with a party?

[Rhyltran]

So, there's a thread (Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?530980-Do-You-DM-or-Play-with-Flair)), that is dangerously close to going off topic, but I'm genuinely curious to know where that topic is going so I want to start a new thread so it can be discussed freely.

The problem seems to be that a Paladin at a table forces the rest of the party to play a certain way. While that may be true in some cases, it isn't true in all, in my opinion.

What are some of the problems that people claim there are with a paladin? I'm just genuinely curious because they are one of my favorite classes and in the games that I've played in, there have never been any problems. I would, however, like to point out that the tables that I play at tend to talk about their characters openly and if someone really wants to play something evil, the other players don't play a paladin out of spite.

With the advent of Book of Exalted Deeds and essentially "other ways to play good", what are some of the lingering issues with playing a vanilla, LG, Paladin of Pelor or Heironeous with a party?

I never had problems with paladins either. I've also played two paladins and the second time my Paladin didn't jive with the rest of the parties opinions, beliefs, and goals. Rather than waste the players time and annoy them to death I made the decision to have my paladin leave. Then I continued with an older character in his stead. So my answer? It shouldn't be a problem if you're willing to work with the players. Also people play paladins, mostly, as one dimensional characters whereas my two paladins couldn't be more different from each other. Your Paladin could be as flexible or as inflexible as you like.

[Hackulator]

Pretty much any problem with a Paladin comes down to either bad players, who refuse to play a character that works with the party, or a bad DM, who lets the players create a party that will never b able to work together.

You can HAVE a paladin and an evil character in the party, it just takes some work from both the players and the DM. It works especially well with a Lawful Evil character who is good at being Lawful Evil.

[Zanos]

The complaint was that the paladin severely restricts what you can play. Paladin + Malconvoker is incompatible, so is a **** ton of other fun stuff, not whether summoning fiendish spiders is "evil", because it is by RAW. The paladin pigeonholes your entire party into playing the standard way, things you can already do in video games, which makes you think, what's the point of playing PnP if neverwinter nights has more options than your table because of that paladin.
Yeah, Paladin's definitely limit options, but that's true of Good alignments in general...or actually just rational people. You're going to get some raised eyebrows from anyone that isn't Evil for binding literal Hell monsters to serve you.

If you want truly unlimited options that nobody is going to take issue with, you're going to have to be playing in a Neutral to Evil party. Good is sort of defined by things it asserts aren't cool to do.

And to those who saying Paladin's don't limit party makeup:

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.

[AnimeTheCat]

Pretty much any problem with a Paladin comes down to either bad players, who refuse to play a character that works with the party, or a bad DM, who lets the players create a party that will never b able to work together.

You can HAVE a paladin and an evil character in the party, it just takes some work from both the players and the DM. It works especially well with a Lawful Evil character who is good at being Lawful Evil.

I believe, understand, and agree with the first part. The second part, not so much since the rules do kind of explicitly say nope.


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.

[denthor]

In a nutshell.

To many rules:

Magic item caps.

Cannot adventure with evil at all

or even Neutral attempting to become good for more then one adventure.

Must only use Lawful Good hirelings need a new pair of boots? Have them made your cobbler is Neutral good black mark possible fall.

You are a paladin of St. Cuthbert you rescue a priest of St. Cuthbert that is LN you pal around with said priest you are told he is not good you lose your paladin status by accepting a mission the next time from that priest. He glorifies your deity but you can not help him purposely.

Your a paladin of Pelor most of the priest you cannot accept a mission from.

Paladins makeep a good NPC class but unless you all agree to run a lawful good party they are just not party material.

[JNAProductions]

Eh... The Paladin Code pretty explicitly calls out not working with Evil people.

Now, there are ways around that-you can be actively working to redeem them (which can risk you being annoying), you can be working together temporarily against a greater evil, but a Paladin should, in general, not be working with an Evil person.

That being said, it's perfectly possible to play a good (not Good) Paladin with the party. It won't work in EVERY party, but it will in most.

[fire_insideout]

My view: Part of the problem with playing a good (as in well played character) paladin in D&D is that since the system itself is so focused on combat, it is easy for players to try and resolve any challenge they meet via violence. This becomes problematic when playing a paladin since you are going to encounter so many individuals and events that your code and alignment forces you to intervene with. If the mechanical options you have been given all (or almost all) revolve around using violence, it's easy to forget what 'Good' actually means and then you get the 'Lawful stupid' paladin that is all too common in 'My worst D&D experience' stories.

That being said, a well played paladin character can be the rock for the rest of the party to rely on and a great benefit when RP:ing difficult moral challenges.

[Malimar]

My favorite Paladin is one I'm playing in 5e, where Wisdom can be a dump stat*. Paladins who dump Wisdom are best Paladins, because they are easily led astray by clever evil (or even just chaotic) party members. (She's even more fun because she's a Drow, so is her terribleness at Paladinhood genetic, or just specific to her because of her 8 Wisdom?)

* I've introduced a feat into my 3.5 games that makes Paladin spellcasting CHA-powered to make it possible here, too -- though on second thought making them spend a feat on that, or the one that makes all CHA-powered abilities WIS-powered, seems cruel to inflict on an already low-powered class, I might just alter the regular Paladin to "pick Charisma or Wisdom -- all Paladin abilities that key off one or the other instead keys only off the one you pick".

[AnimeTheCat]

In a nutshell.

To many rules:

Magic item caps.

Cannot adventure with evil at all

or even Neutral attempting to become good for more then one adventure.

Must only use Lawful Good hirelings need a new pair of boots? Have them made your cobbler is Neutral good black mark possible fall.

You are a paladin of St. Cuthbert you rescue a priest of St. Cuthbert that is LN you pal around with said priest you are told he is not good you lose your paladin status by accepting a mission the next time from that priest. He glorifies your deity but you can not help him purposely.

Your a paladin of Pelor most of the priest you cannot accept a mission from.

Paladins makeep a good NPC class but unless you all agree to run a lawful good party they are just not party material.

Magic Item Caps? What do you mean?

If someone is playing an evil character, why would another player play a paladin? If someone is playing a paladin, why would another player play an evil character?

Again, look at the "Associations" quote from the SRD. You can adventure with any other alignment without issue, just not Evil. The rules also only say that Followers, Cohorts, and henchmen have to be lawful, so buying boots from a neutral or chaotic character isn't a fall. Not even remotely.

Additionally, here's the rules for the Code of Conduct:


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

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

St. Cuthburt is not an evil deity, therefore it is fully within a paladin's code of conduct to assist a priest of St. Cuthburt or even Pelor for that matter. If the Priest is a friend and helps out, that character is not a hireling, cohort, or henchman so it doesn't matter that they aren't Lawful Good. As long as you're serving good, you can take missions from anyone. In fact, ignoring a good mission would be more likely to cause trouble than accepting a mission from a character who is neutral.

[Zanos]

My view: Part of the problem with playing a good (as in well played character) paladin in D&D is that since the system itself is so focused on combat, it is easy for players to try and resolve any challenge they meet via violence. This becomes problematic when playing a paladin since you are going to encounter so many individuals and events that your code and alignment forces you to intervene with. If the mechanical options you have been given all (or almost all) revolve around using violence, it's easy to forget what 'Good' actually means and then you get the 'Lawful stupid' paladin that is all too common in 'My worst D&D experience' stories.
Good kills people too. Paladins kill people a lot, since they're pretty clearly warriors. As I mentioned in the other thread, the Lawful Stupid paladin is the guy that kills rogues for stealing or obeys an Evil tyrant because he's Lawful, or tackles people for jaywalking. The Paladin that smites a demon summoner is doing his job properly.

Paladins aren't obligated to take on tasks they couldn't possibly achieve, like being level 1 and destroying an Evil lich or something, but bringing violence to Evil people is pretty much their job description.

[Hackulator]

I believe, understand, and agree with the first part. The second part, not so much since the rules do kind of explicitly say nope.

A Paladin will not KNOWINGLY associate with an evil character. If you are playing a paladin who is just using detect evil on everybody including the party, you're being a pain and eventually, someone will get pissed and you will catch a beating. A Lawful Evil character who stays within the bounds of the law can get away with adventuring with a paladin.

Also, if the situation is dire enough, I think it's reasonable to say most Paladins would work with an evil character even if they didn't want to. IE, something terrible is going to happen and without this persons help they can't stop it.


Good kills people too. Paladins kill people a lot, since they're pretty clearly warriors. As I mentioned in the other thread, the Lawful Stupid paladin is the guy that kills rogues for stealing or obeys an Evil tyrant because he's Lawful, or tackles people for jaywalking. The Paladin that smites a demon summoner is doing his job properly.

Paladins aren't obligated to take on tasks they couldn't possibly achieve, like being level 1 and destroying an Evil lich or something, but bringing violence to Evil people is pretty much their job description.

I think this is generally true, however I think a good character should often make the ATTEMPT to resolve issues without violence, if the situation is reasonable. Clearly, if you're fighting demons or undead or evil dragons, slay away, but not everything is always that cut and dry.

[AnimeTheCat]

Good kills people too. Paladins kill people a lot, since they're pretty clearly warriors. As I mentioned in the other thread, the Lawful Stupid paladin is the guy that kills rogues for stealing or obeys an Evil tyrant because he's Lawful, or tackles people for jaywalking. The Paladin that smites a demon summoner is doing his job properly.

Paladins aren't obligated to take on tasks they couldn't possibly achieve, like being level 1 and destroying an Evil lich or something, but bringing violence to Evil people is pretty much their job description.

Oh, I never once thought that killing was an inherently evil thing. Otherwise everything in D&D would always be evil and there would be no such thing as good. That being said, I think that a Paladin who catches and NPC rogue, should definitely try to bring said rogue to the magistrate for just punishment. While not being *evil* theft is definitely not lawful and should be dealt with through the appropriate channels. If you're a particularly compassionate paladin, you could offer to try reforming the rogue and take them on as a ward basically, especially if their punishment may be death. A Lawful Good paladin that I may play could either intercede on the rogues behalf to prevent them from death because there's no reason to senselessly kill or I may be more on the side of glory and let the justice system take control and run it's process. It all depends on that particular paladin.

As for following an evil tyrant, I don't actually thing that would happen since you never willingly associate with an evil character and with detect evil at will, you're pretty likely to know that tyrant is evil.

Now, a young paladin (level 1) who just got his Paladin's Union badge, may actually stop jaywalkers and give them a stern talking to for breaking the law, but it's only a matter of time before one of the older paladins teaches him or until he learns to pick his battles.


A Paladin will not KNOWINGLY associate with an evil character. If you are playing a paladin who is just using detect evil on everybody including the party, you're being a pain and eventually, someone will get pissed and you will catch a beating. A Lawful Evil character who stays within the bounds of the law can get away with adventuring with a paladin.

Also, if the situation is dire enough, I think it's reasonable to say most Paladins would work with an evil character even if they didn't want to. IE, something terrible is going to happen and without this persons help they can't stop it.

You Ninja'd me with the second half of your response, but when I play paladins I usually tell the DM, I've got my detect evil up pretty much all the time. I may not always act on something if it's evil, but at least I know and I can be aware of it. It's at will, why not use it? That being said, even if you're playing a LE necromancer a paladin is not going to be ok with the party member summoning undead or creating them or things of that nature, at least I woldn't think a Paladin would be ok with that. If you're able to find a way to flavorfully work around it, great let me know because that would be awesome to have in games. Otherwise it doesn't seem to fit *My* flavor is all :smallbiggrin:

[denthor]

A paladin can only have so many magic items as a maximum number. Or they fall

You can I said making boots not buying boots from a vendor. That would be a hireling you hiring a person to make you purple and pink boots of speed. Or just you purple and pink boots.

Read this forum one person wants Chaotic Evil necromancer the other player wants a paladin it happens all the time.

[AnimeTheCat]

A paladin can only have so many magic items as a maximum number. Or they fall

You can I said making boots not buying boots from a vendor. That would be a hireling you hiring a person to make you purple and pink boots of speed. Or just you purple and pink boots.

Read this forum one person wants Chaotic Evil necromancer the other player wants a paladin it happens all the time.

Can I get a citation for the paladin falling for having too many magic items? I'm not sure I am following that.

Also, Hirelings aren't covered under the "henchmen, followers, or cohorts" of the associates rule on the SRD.

As for one person playing Chaotic Evil Necromancer vs playing Paladin, I said in the OP

"I would, however, like to point out that the tables that I play at tend to talk about their characters openly and if someone really wants to play something evil, the other players don't play a paladin out of spite."

I addressed that sometimes this just happens, but either way someone is going to be unhappy so your argument can be used on both sides of the coin. By no means invalidating it, but not the strongest argument.

[torrasque666]

A paladin can only have so many magic items as a maximum number. Or they fall

You can I said making boots not buying boots from a vendor. That would be a hireling you hiring a person to make you purple and pink boots of speed. Or just you purple and pink boots.

I'm sorry where in the Nine Hells of Baator does it say that a Paladin can only have so many magic items before falling? And the PHB is clear that they can have neutral hirelings, they just can't have evil ones that they know are evil.

[RoboEmperor]

I keep bringing up malconvoker because it specifically says using evil for good, and you can be a lawful good character and still be a malconvoker (Lawful refers to your personal code rather than society or a deity's code)

Good =/= no hell minions, undead, etc. That's why I said lawful stupid in the other thread, because despite being a good malconvoker, a paladin or a lawful good cleric is gonna murder you.

Also, before we go further, keep in mind everyone that we are using d&d's definition of good and evil, so we should not try to get too philosophical. Killing evil creatures = good, killing good creatures = evil, and you need a class feature to avoid becoming evil when you cast too many evil spells.

There is nothing wrong with a lawful player roleplaying his character to extremes. There is something wrong with a lawful player forcing other people to play their character his way.

I give an analogy, the Frenzied Berserker. I had a player who "joked" about killing everyone in the party over and over again, and in the end he wanted other players to use their resources on his character, be it making our bard learn calm emotions spell, use our money or feats to give him fodder, etc, and when we suggested he pay for the stuff, he said no. He said he needs every gp to stay relevant late game. Such a selfish player is a piece of ****. No one wants to waste a spell known on a stupid spell that is used solely for a single party member, and no one wants to use their gold to not die to their own party member.

Paladin is worse, because instead of making the party waste resources on him, he flat out forces players to change characters. No one wants to change character because 1 player is a paladin. No one wants to play a character they didn't want to play because of that paladin. If the paladin was capable of working with "evil" characters like malconvoker and not force his moral code on other people there wouldn't be a problem.

So I guess "What's Wrong with a paladin" is, "It takes away other player's freedom". No one likes a railroad DM therefore no one likes a railroad player. An entire party should not change everything they want to do to appease one player.

[rax]

Denthor may be referring to the 2e paladin, which had restrictions similar to the ones he's talking about.

[Hackulator]

You Ninja'd me with the second half of your response, but when I play paladins I usually tell the DM, I've got my detect evil up pretty much all the time. I may not always act on something if it's evil, but at least I know and I can be aware of it. It's at will, why not use it? That being said, even if you're playing a LE necromancer a paladin is not going to be ok with the party member summoning undead or creating them or things of that nature, at least I woldn't think a Paladin would be ok with that. If you're able to find a way to flavorfully work around it, great let me know because that would be awesome to have in games. Otherwise it doesn't seem to fit *My* flavor is all :smallbiggrin:

lol

You will get no argument from me there.

I am talking about things like, a Lawful Evil Wizard who doesn't necessarily use "evil" spells or a Lawful Evil Rogue. They don't break the law, but they are serious jerks within it's bounds.

As for having Detect Good up all the time, your DM is being very lenient with you. It requires your concentration, and in order to get information you have to study a particular area or person, sometimes for multiple rounds. You are basically very obviously staring people down all the time in a creepy, intrusive manner. If your Paladin is constantly doing that and nobody is ever bother by it or calling him out it's not very realistic.

[digiman619]

First things first, the code of conduct. It's simultaneously incredibly strict and incredibly vague. It's this big, red, shiny self-destruct button that only this class has. Sure, alignment change can pull some classes away from their classes, becoming "ex-<whatever>s", but alignment changes are generally subtle and over time. A Paladin's Fall is generally a trap door, sudden loss. Plus they are vulnerable to that kind of loss, too.

It also makes the mistake that Lawful Good is inherently [Good]-er than any other alignment. Consider the following scenario: a Paladin was off crusading for many months and when he finally returns home, he discovers that his king had died and the new king has become a tyrant who is milking his people dry to build his own version of Versailles. Rather than stand around in the new King's court wearing fancy clothes and eating delicacies while the rest of the kingdom starves, he forsakes his oath and starts a rebellion to overthrow this despot.

The problem is that he's clearly chosen [Good] over [Law], and his actions show he clearly isn't LG anymore (this might actually be enough to make him CG, even if it's only one step, it's enough to make him fall). However, should he choose to swallow his conscience and bend knee to the new king; to choose [Law] over [Good]... he still falls because he's knowingly associating with an evil person.

All this is ignoring that the "holy knight" concept that the class is meant to signify can be done with tons of other classes and archetypes (forgive me, I a Pathfinder player mostly) that don't have the aforementioned self-destruct button. What's stopping me from making my "paladin" from a Ranger chassis? Or a Cleric, or PF Warpriest? To use another example, if my character concept is "follower of nature god who gets powers from her beliefs". That concept works with clerics, druids, rangers, favored souls, divine minds, PF Inquisitors, PF Hunters, and PF Warpreists, and various ACF's and archetypes of other classes to make them a better fit. The mechanics are very different between them, but the character you'd play is more or less the same.

There's also the fact that some players use them as an excuse to be sanctimonious and judgemental, much like some players use Kender as an excuse to be disruptive. I realize that's not the class' fault, but if we're talking about problems surrounding the class, I would be remiss to ignore it. No other class has fluff like that, and it attracts a certain crowd. Not to say that it only, or indeed mostly, draws that kind of player, but it's a significant enough percentage that you don't get with similarly "holy" classes.

There's also the fact that, depending on the edition, the class itself is often quite weak is a problem for another time, though.

[Zanos]

I keep bringing up malconvoker because it specifically says using evil for good, and you can be a lawful good character and still be a malconvoker (Lawful refers to your personal code rather than society or a deity's code)

Good =/= no hell minions, undead, etc. That's why I said lawful stupid in the other thread, because despite being a good malconvoker, a paladin or a lawful good cleric is gonna murder you.
I'd argue that malconvoker is poorly written in this case. You shouldn't be able to summon literal devils and still be Good, because of how D&Ds cosmic morality works. "Ends justify the means" is very specifically not how D&D morality works. Also, the quote for the example Malconvoker is cartoonishly Evil, bordering on the insane.


“Take him, my slaves! Drag his soul back to your dark masters!” —Argyll Te’Shea, servant of Pelor and malconvoker
Encouraging Devil slaves to drag someone's soul back to hell for eternal torture is not something a Good character should be doing, especially not a servant of Pelor.

Of course it makes sense because Pelor is actually The Burning Hate and an archfiend masquerading as a Good deity.


Also, before we go further, keep in mind everyone that we are using d&d's definition of good and evil, so we should not try to get too philosophical. Killing evil creatures = good, killing good creatures = evil, and you need a class feature to avoid becoming evil when you cast too many evil spells.
I get what you're saying but this isn't specifically true. Killing in combat is generally neutral. Walking down the street and killing anyway on your detect evil radar is definitely Evil.

The only time killing is always Good or Evil is when you're destroying [Evil] or [Good] outsiders.


I give an analogy, the Frenzied Berserker. I had a player who "joked" about killing everyone in the party over and over again, and in the end he wanted other players to use their resources on his character, be it making our bard learn calm emotions spell, use our money or feats to give him fodder, etc, and when we suggested he pay for the stuff, he said no. He said he needs every gp to stay relevant late game. Such a selfish player is a piece of ****. No one wants to waste a spell known on a stupid spell that is used solely for a single party member, and no one wants to use their gold to not die to their own party member.
That's pretty far from an analogy. That's just an anecdote of a player being a jerk. Also, a FB kills player characters regardless of anyone's choices, because the class is dumb and bad.


Paladin is worse, because instead of making the party waste resources on him, he flat out forces players to change characters. No one wants to change character because 1 player is a paladin. No one wants to play a character they didn't want to play because of that paladin. If the paladin was capable of working with "evil" characters like malconvoker and not force his moral code on other people there wouldn't be a problem.

So I guess "What's Wrong with a paladin" is, "It takes away other player's freedom". No one likes a railroad DM therefore no one likes a railroad player. An entire party should not change everything they want to do to appease one player.
That doesn't make Paladin worse than any other good PC, who also aren't going to tolerate literal demon summoning and undead creation 95% of the time.

This is really why character creation, or at least concepts, should be discussed before anyone starts putting stuff down on paper. There are a lot of classes and alignments with strictly incompatible philosophies. Are druids bad because you can't play a blighter in the same party (or anything else that hates nature)? Are illithid slayers bad because you can't play an illithid in the same party? Is a vampire hunter a bad character concept because a vampire is technically a player option? Yeah, Paladin is more restrictive than most of those in that it shuts out 1/3rd of the alignment pool, but so do most Good characters in general.


It also makes the mistake that Lawful Good is inherently [Good]-er than any other alignment. Consider the following scenario: a Paladin was off crusading for many months and when he finally returns home, he discovers that his king had died and the new king has become a tyrant who is milking his people dry to build his own version of Versailles. Rather than stand around in the new King's court wearing fancy clothes and eating delicacies while the rest of the kingdom starves, he forsakes his oath and starts a rebellion to overthrow this despot.

The problem is that he's clearly chosen [Good] over [Law], and his actions show he clearly isn't LG anymore (this might actually be enough to make him CG, even if it's only one step, it's enough to make him fall). However, should he choose to swallow his conscience and bend knee to the new king; to choose [Law] over [Good]... he still falls because he's knowingly associating with an evil person.
Lawful alignments are under no obligation to obey illegitimate authorities. And one action can't shift your entire alignment like that usually. If the Paladin has been unwaveringly Lawful up to that point, overthrowing a incompetent despot to install a better king isn't going to make him non-Lawful.

Consider that a LE tyrant that incites a rebellion in his adversaries territory so that he can move in and take it over is still very likely LE.

[Vaern]

I've played a chaotic evil character in a party with a lawful good monk - not a paladin, sure, but by nature of role playing his alignment properly he behaved in almost all respects as he would be expected to behave if he had been a paladin.
We basically played it off that he was not willingly working with me, and that I was constantly putting on displays of my arcane power, hinting he would be unable to defeat me if he challenged me, and making subtle threats that I would come back to haunt him if he tried to flee from the party. At one point we did duel and almost killed each other, but thanks to a good roll on a bluff check I managed to convince him that I had a lot more fight left in me than I actually did, thus demoralizing him into accepting defeat.
Thus, he had decided that the best course of action would be to stay close and try to act as the angel on my shoulder, tying to convince me against spreading pain and misfortune wherever I went. He was not allowing me to be evil per se, but he accepted that he had little power to prevent me from being evil short of rolling high on a diplomacy check.

Granted, a paladin's code says they may not knowingly associate with an evil character, not that they are unable to willingly associate. A DM might still rule that a paladin would fall in this case, but he was pretty much doing the best he could manage and I don't think that an actual paladin would have had any better options than the monk did if given the same circumstances.

[RoboEmperor]

"Ends justify the means" is very specifically not how D&D morality works.

Robin Hood, which probably means a lot of Chaotic Good characters out there are the ones that let the ends justify the means. I haven't played any other edition so, I can't challenge you on this, but I think you're wrong in 3.5. I think Malconvoker is not a unique case. Anyways Paladins are incompatible with Robin Hood. Paladins will force Robin Hood to stop stealing and when he disobeys his order, he's gonna incarcerate him.


That doesn't make Paladin worse than any other good PC, who also aren't going to tolerate literal demon summoning and undead creation 95% of the time.

You keep bringing this up but, other classes like the cleric can change their character's personalities to accommodate other unconventional characters and still play cleric, but the Paladin can't. So once we have an idea of how everyone is going to play, the cleric can make his personality fit the party but the paladin has to ditch his build entirely, or make everyone else cater to him.

So it is true that a Cleric can be just as disruptive as a Paladin, but a Cleric can be fixed so there is no party conflict while the paladin cannot. Clerics can work with Robin Hood but Paladins can't. Robin Hood and Clerics can work with Malconvoker, but Paladins can't.


Yeah, Paladin is more restrictive than most of those in that it shuts out 1/3rd of the alignment pool, but so do most Good characters in general.

More like 7/9. The only Alignments I see not having a problem with a paladin are Neutral Good and Lawful Neutral.

[OldTrees1]

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.1 Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor2 (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters3, 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 lawful4 good.

1) This line splits the player base. I have seen 4 general kinds of paladin stories:
The story of the infallible knight
The story of the personal journey to become the infallible knight
The redemption story
and the corruption story

This line only supports the first story. The second story fails when the fallible knight makes one of their every decreasing number of mistakes. The third and fourth stories fail when the game makes the character too weak to handle the encounters it expects.

2) This line casts the Paladin as following Kantian Ethics. That is all fine and good, however Kant's arguments against lying EVER lead to some counterintuitive situations. If a murderer was asking an unarmed Paladin if their victim was home, Kant would expect the Paladin to be honest and tell the murder that the victim was downstairs. Kant may be right, but some DMs will not be using Kantian Ethics. At those tables this line can force the Paladin to do Evil in the name of honor.

3) This line is the one I dislike the most. There are many good deeds that require associating with evil character and only some of them require associating with a questionable deed. How can a Paladin attempt to redeem someone without associating with them? When trying to stop the end of the world, how can a Paladin refuse the help of an antihero that is doing nothing evil at the moment? When trying to help innocents escape a tyranny, how can a Paladin refuse the charity of the smuggler's guild?

Evil characters can do good deeds and Paladins should be able to associate with those good deeds. "I know what you have done in the past, but right now you are trying to save these innocents. I will assist in their escape, and maybe later I can help you explore this better way to live."

4) Interestingly enough the Paladin of Honor will accept neither the NG Paladin nor the Paladin of Freedom(CG) as henchmen, followers, or cohorts.


The concept of the Paladin is a great one that can fit in more parties than one normally thinks and does not have to dictate how the other characters are played. However we DMs can write codes of conduct that better fit that reality than the RAW code of conduct.

[BobsYourUncle!]

Food for thought:

Paladin as written as a lot of restrictions. But D and D is nothing if not a flexible guideline rather then a hard set of rules. :) Even Evil Gods have champions or Paladins serving them. I mean Kord would have Paladins so would Palor of course or St. Cuthbert but so would the evil deities. Lawful Good can be interpreted in a different way.

Lawful: Following the Law.. The Law can change from place to place and Deity to Deity. What one God considers bad another may embrace fully. I would allow a Paladin to follow the Deific Law of the God they follow. If that is Kord and Bloodlust for Battle so be it.

Good: To act in the way normal to Society. Well again one society maybe valuing gold and wealth as good. others may see war and pillaging as good, aka Vikings, So the They can again be Good to the norms of their local society of Deity as well.

This should open up many possibilities. So if you are a Paladin Serving a Non-Good Deity and the rule about not willingly associating with an evil person takes a twist. If you use the Deity's rules and laws as the benchmark of what is good and evil. Then even if you are worshipping the non-good god and serving him then there is always an opposite or evil. Example: If your god believes in death and violence in combat then for them this would be the Good. and a pacifist or non-fighting person would be Evil.

Just a thought that you can make Paladin work in any situation. just have to be willing to get out of the black and white ink of the rule book and imagine.

[Zanos]

Robin Hood, which probably means a lot of Chaotic Good characters out there are the ones that let the ends justify the means. I haven't played any other edition so, I can't challenge you on this, but I think you're wrong in 3.5. I think Malconvoker is not a unique case. Anyways Paladins are incompatible with Robin Hood. Paladins will force Robin Hood to stop stealing and when he disobeys his order, he's gonna incarcerate him.
Where is Robin Hood's stat block that shows that he's Chaotic Good?

In any case, BoED is 3.5 and has an entire section about ends and means that supports my conclusion. I'd have to double check if core has anything to say about it.


You keep bringing this up but, other classes like the cleric can change their character's personalities to accommodate other unconventional characters and still play cleric, but the Paladin can't. So once we have an idea of how everyone is going to play, the cleric can make his personality fit the party but the paladin has to ditch his build entirely, or make everyone else cater to him.
How is that better? You're limiting viable character concepts, if not mechanics, which is still bad if your starting position is that anyone can play anything. "You can't play a Githyanki that hates Illithid, because there's an Illithid in the party" is somehow better then "You can't play a necromancer because there's a Paladin in the party?"

All Good characters having to tolerate demon summoning undead creation seems like a pretty far shot to me. And you ignored the other classes with pretty obvious restrictions on what they can work with.


So it is true that a Cleric can be just as disruptive as a Paladin, but a Cleric can be fixed so there is no party conflict while the paladin cannot. Clerics can work with Robin Hood but Paladins can't. Robin Hood and Clerics can work with Malconvoker, but Paladins can't.
Paladins can work with Robin Hood just fine. They just can't help Robin Hood upend a legitimate authority.


More like 7/9. The only Alignments I see not having a problem with a paladin are Neutral Good and Lawful Neutral.

Aditionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
That doesn't seem to be the case to me.

[Necroticplague]

Even beyond the problems with the code, there's also the fact that class is, mechanically, pretty crappy. And frankly, you can do better on both aspects by just playing a Cleric, since they have less strict codes and better spells.

[RoboEmperor]

@Zanos
You might want to fix the quotes in your post.

Stealing is Chaotic, especially stealing from the Tax Collector. Robin Hood is without a doubt, Good, therefore Chaotic Good. In my experience he was the #1 example for chaotic good whenever the alignment was mentioned.


How is that better? You're limiting viable character concepts, if not mechanics, which is still bad if your starting position is that anyone can play anything. "You can't play a Githyanki that hates Illithid, because there's an Illithid in the party" is somehow better then "You can't play a necromancer because there's a Paladin in the party?"

All Good characters having to tolerate demon summoning undead creation seems like a pretty far shot to me. And you ignored the other classes with pretty obvious restrictions on what they can work with.

Which limits viable character concepts more? Paladin or Malconvoker? Because I'm pretty goddamn sure it's the Paladin by tenfold, if not a hundred fold, or even a thousand fold. I don't understand what your argument is. Are you saying Malconvokers are a much worse and restricting class than the Paladin? Because yes, every class and character concepts have incompatibilities, but I'm pretty goddamn sure Paladin has the most incompatibilities. I have never heard of anyone b****ing about Malconvokers, while on the other hand, I see a lot of Paladins getting banned from the "ground rules" of games on roll20, frenzied berserkers are a close 2nd.

edit: And no, paladins cannot work with Robin Hood, who steals from tax collectors.

edit2: just for the record, its "No evil alignments" is #1, "No paladins" is #2, and frenzied berserks are #3 I think on what's banned.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Where is Robin Hood's stat block that shows that he's Chaotic Good?

Indeed. The most popular image of Robin Hood casts him as a partisan of the rightful king against a false one. De Gaulle wasn't Chaotic because he refused to obey Petain. More generally, 'Lawful' does not necessarily mean 'law-abiding'. It means one has a code that one sticks to, but this code is not necessarily the same as that of the society around you. When the laws of society come into conflict with his code, a Paladin is not bound to obey them - in fact, he is far more likely to be bound to disobey them.

Incidentally, the spellchecker recognises 'Petain' but not 'De Gaulle'. I find this somewhat worrying.

[Zanos]

Stealing is Chaotic, especially stealing from the Tax Collector. Robin Hood is without a doubt, Good, therefore Chaotic Good. In my experience he was the #1 example for chaotic good whenever the alignment was mentioned.
I'm sure that people present Darth Palpatine as a common example of a LE villain, but that doesn't make it so.

The common perception of a character and the common perception of an alignment often differ dramatically from what the books actually say they are.


Which limits viable character concepts more? Paladin or Malconvoker? Because I'm pretty goddamn sure it's the Paladin by tenfold, if not a hundred fold, or even a thousand fold. I don't understand what your argument is. Are you saying Malconvokers are a much worse and restricting class than the Paladin? Because yes, every class and character concepts have incompatibilities, but I'm pretty goddamn sure Paladin has the most incompatibilities. I have never heard of anyone b****ing about Malconvokers, while on the other hand, I see a lot of Paladins getting banned from the "ground rules" of games on roll20, frenzied berserkers are a close 2nd.
In a traditionally heroic party, malconvoker would, because most people are not going to tolerate someone that summons beings of pure Evil from the lower planes and has them drag the souls of their enemies back to hell to be tortured eternally or consumed by fiends.

By playing a malconvoker, you're insisting that everyone in the party write their characters such that they are okay with that. That is just as bad as your complaints regarding Paladins. Arguably worse, considering that anybody rational would have a problem with that sort of thing.


edit: And no, paladins cannot work with Robin Hood, who steals from tax collectors.
A paladin can't aid someone if they use that aid to commit Evil or Chaotic acts. There's nothing else in the code about working with Chaotic people, only that the Paladin must be Lawful.

[magicalmagicman]

By playing a malconvoker, you're insisting that everyone in the party write their characters such that they are okay with that. That is just as bad as your complaints regarding Paladins. Arguably worse, considering that anybody rational would have a problem with that sort of thing.

It's not even that. If I'm playing a summoner, and I can't summon all of the good creatures like mephits for SLAs, bone devil for at-will ice wall, stinking cloud from dretch all because of a paladin in the party, I'd be angry too. This includes all wizards, sorcerers, non-good clerics, any spellcaster really that uses summon monster. So his existence pisses off every experienced d&d spellcaster because every good spellcaster in d&d uses summon monster at least as a utility SLA spell, which is not possible because of the Paladin.

Paladins also stop creative solutions to problems that involve breaking the law or stealing or even tricking. He kind of ends up telling everyone what to do, what they can't do, etc. and it gets really annoying.

I like Warlocks because they have a free 1min/level animate dead, and it's really fun, kinda like skyrim except without the 1 undead limit, but the paladin stops me from doing that.

[Zanos]

I'll just use a more commonly accepted Evil act so people understand my point here.

I want to play a murderer. A serial killer. They murder innocent people for fun or whatever.

Now, because I want to do that, should everyone else in the party write their characters such that they're okay with serial killers because I want to play one? My opinion is absolutely not.

[Rhyltran]

I'll just use a more commonly accepted Evil act so people understand my point here.

I want to play a murderer. A serial killer. They murder innocent people for fun or whatever.

Now, because I want to do that, should everyone else in the party write their characters such that they're okay with serial killers because I want to play one? My opinion is absolutely not.

I think in this case it should boil down to accepting what the rest of the group wants. Everyone wants to be serial killer murder hobos? The guy who wants to be paladin should have to come up with a new concept. The party all wants to be good guys? The serial killer murder hobo may need to come up with a new concept.

[Zanos]

I think in this case it should boil down to accepting what the rest of the group wants. Everyone wants to be serial killer murder hobos? The guy who wants to be paladin should have to come up with a new concept. The party all wants to be good guys? The serial killer murder hobo may need to come up with a new concept.
I agree. Character creation should be cooperative to begin with.

[RoboEmperor]

I'll just use a more commonly accepted Evil act so people understand my point here.

I want to play a murderer. A serial killer. They murder innocent people for fun or whatever.

Now, because I want to do that, should everyone else in the party write their characters such that they're okay with serial killers because I want to play one? My opinion is absolutely not.

Good job, now we can see exactly where we disagree.

1. Most people in real life who play d&d don't view using necromancy or fiendish creatures, or even demons and devils to fight evil as evil. I have never met a person who was even remotely uncomfortable with a player summoning fiends or animating dead. So this is not evil to normal people and therefore not evil to their characters.
2. Most people in real life are open to "creative solutions" (as magicalmagicman puts it), and actually discusses these options in great length.
3. Paladins use d&d's alignment
4. Because of #3, paladins are extremely against 1 & 2 to the point they will either leave the party or fight the party.

If people in real life used d&d alignment, and they had a problem with the malconvoker using evil creatures, and the malconvoker used it anyways and forced the party to change their characters to cater to him, you are right, this is absolutely unacceptable.

So i guess my amended argument is: Because Paladins use d&d's definitions of good and evil, Paladins prevent players from doing so many nond&d good acts to the point that players don't want to play with a paladin in the party, because it forces them all to play like Paladins themselves.


I agree. Character creation should be cooperative to begin with.

I never disagreed with this. I'm saying Paladins are not cooperative in character creation. They are the most uncooperative class in the entire game. and is why everyone hates them, especially me.

[Zanos]

Good job, now we can see exactly where we disagree.

1. Most people in real life who play d&d don't view using necromancy or fiendish creatures, or even demons and devils to fight evil as evil. I have never met a person who was even remotely uncomfortable with a player summoning fiends or animating dead. So this is not evil to normal people and therefore not evil to their characters.
It doesn't make me, a player, uncomfortable. Many of my characters traffic with dark powers. But it's Evil as all hell in universe.


2. Most people in real life are open to "creative solutions" (as magicalmagicman puts it), and actually discusses these options in great length.
Now whether or not if I personally was in this situation, it's hard to say without knowing the exact mechanics. But if I knew the guy next to me was summoning stuff from actual, physical Hell and sending the souls of the people he killed to the lower planes so they can be tortured for eternity, I would probably have some major problems with that, even if he was effective in killing people trying to kill me.



3. Paladins use d&d's alignment
4. Because of #3, paladins are extremely against 1 & 2 to the point they will either leave the party or fight the party.

If people in real life used d&d alignment, and they had a problem with the malconvoker using evil creatures, and the malconvoker used it anyways and forced the party to change their characters to cater to him, you are right, this is absolutely unacceptable.

So i guess my amended argument is: Because Paladins use d&d's definitions of good and evil, Paladins prevent players from doing so many nond&d good acts to the point that players don't want to play with a paladin in the party, because it forces them all to play like Paladins themselves.
While I agree that D&D alignment doesn't mesh with real world alignment all that often, I do think that summoning literal Devils from actual Hell to fight for you and sending the souls of your enemies back with them is one of the times it meshes fairly well. It would take some pretty dire circumstances for the average person to consider that as a legitimate option.


I never disagreed with this. I'm saying Paladins are not cooperative in character creation. They are the most uncooperative class in the entire game. and is why everyone hates them, especially me.
It seems to me that you hate them because you like to traffic with spooky magic more often than not. Paladins are fine in traditional party compositions, which don't include people throwing out demons and devils every combat turn.

[Gildedragon]

The problem with the Paladin is that it should be a Prestige Class or ACF of Cleric...

Wait you mean "What's wrong" as in playing one?
None, really. It isn't the class that has the problem but the players sticking to a too narrow definition of Law and Good (usually to the detriment of Good)
The well played Paladin is... well maybe a bit of a stiff, but someone dependable and that can be trusted to do right by anyone that needs their help, regardless of their alignment.
A paladin will prevent the mob-killing of a merchant that's been ripping the population off.
If a thief has been roughed up by the city watch, the paladin will heal them, even if as he tsks disapprovingly...
And yes, the paladin will probably want to NOT break into the mannor to steal the Duke's ledgers that prove he's been <evil deed-ing>; but the paladin will probably get the whole party invitations to the ball in that same mansion, and small talk the Duke for hours while the rogue discretely leaves to powder their nose... And probably remind the party that copying the ledgers isn't theft, per-se, so that quill of amanuesis take it along; just don't break anything.

A paladin in a party has to be flexible.
And the player needs to know when to turn a blind eye, and work for party cohesion

Yes a paladin won't stand for slaughtering or roughing up civilians... But if the party is doing that, well, honestly two questions come to mind: a) what manner of party is that and what is a paladin doing there? And 2) maybe the problem is with the characters doing flagrantly evil acts, no?

As to evil spell casting:
Death watch having the [evil] tag is wrong; yeah yeah RAW or whatever, it's still wrong.
Ditto for the creation of non-hungering, non-spawn creating undead (skellies for example).
Actually it behooves the DM to go over the spells with the Evil descriptor and think if it actually makes sense for it to be so, remembering that the NEP isn't Evil in and of itself.
Spells like Cheat ought be [Chaos] not [Evil]
Revive Undead isn't evil at all... Etc

Also if poisons are evil: so ought be ravages and spells that do ability damage.
Just... ditch that bit of the code.

[magicalmagicman]

Now whether or not if I personally was in this situation, it's hard to say without knowing the exact mechanics. But if I knew the guy next to me was summoning stuff from actual, physical Hell and sending the souls of the people he killed to the lower planes so they can be tortured for eternity, I would probably have some major problems with that, even if he was effective in killing people trying to kill me.

I was thinking more along the lines of false flag operations, forging official documents and impersonating officials, lying to the masses when the truth would cause a civil war, that kind of stuff. Paladins say no to all of these.


Because Paladins use d&d's definitions of good and evil, Paladins prevent players from doing so many nond&d good acts to the point that players don't want to play with a paladin in the party, because it forces them all to play like Paladins themselves.

...

I never disagreed with this. I'm saying Paladins are not cooperative in character creation. They are the most uncooperative class in the entire game. and is why everyone hates them, especially me.

I guess this is how I would put it too.


It seems to me that you hate them because you like to traffic with spooky magic more often than not. Paladins are fine in traditional party compositions, which don't include people throwing out demons and devils every combat turn.

I guess that's true for me at least. Summon Monster, Planar Binding, The Dead Walk, but that still doesn't deny the fact that paladins outright stop all creative solutions, which is something I really hate.

[hamishspence]

As to evil spell casting:
Death watch having the [evil] tag is wrong; yeah yeah RAW or whatever, it's still wrong.

Indeed - it seems clear that whoever changed it from 3.0 (Monte Cook? He recommends changing it in the 3.0 book BOVD), didn't manage to "make it stick" when it comes to the other writers - BoED gave an Exalted PRC the Deathwatch spell, and Miniatures Handbook gave the "must be Good" Healer class, the spell.

[AnimeTheCat]

1. Most people in real life who play d&d don't view using necromancy or fiendish creatures, or even demons and devils to fight evil as evil. I have never met a person who was even remotely uncomfortable with a player summoning fiends or animating dead. So this is not evil to normal people and therefore not evil to their characters.

I, personally, know and have known many people who have huge problems with disturbing the dead and summoning vile evils. As a rule, these people never summon the fiendish summons or use pretty much any evil spell. I wouldn't call these people "abnormal". I would, in fact, calling people who were ok with the raising of the dead to imperfect life (skeletons/zombies/etc) and summoning creatures that have been twisted by evil (fiendish creatures or fiends) the abnormal ones. The vast majority of people I play with and have played with (3 people being the exception out of 12 years of playing) were not ok with animating the dead and summoning fiends. In my experience "Most People" have a problem with using necromancy and fiends/demons/devils/undead and view the use as evil.


2. Most people in real life are open to "creative solutions" (as magicalmagicman puts it), and actually discusses these options in great length.

A paladin is required to Respect the Law. Respecting the Law means using it at any means when it's viable. This does not stop a rogue from going about using his/her methods.

For example, there is a necromancer poisoning the water source for a town. Nobody in town can figure it out, but the party has. They approach the solution from multiple different angles. The paladin goes to the magistrate and brings the accusation to the halls of justice. The rogue goes to "Gather Information" which is brief for "i'm going to break in to the house and steal the poison that the necromancer is using". While the Paladin is off doing the lawful thing, the rogue is off doing the chaotic thing. The party successfully stops the necromancer and saves the town. In the end, the paladin finds out that the rogue snuck in stole the poison (breaking and entering/stealing) and so rightfully (according to the law) turns the rogue in to the magistrate. The paladin then, however, intercedes on behalf of the rogue stating that, while the character did not follow the law, his actions upheld the very mission of the town's guard, to protect the people and town. He followed the law through to the end and got the rogue off without punishment. The Paladin remained Lawful Good through the who thing and did not ever once breech his code.


3. Paladins use d&d's alignment
4. Because of #3, paladins are extremely against 1 & 2 to the point they will either leave the party or fight the party.

If people in real life used d&d alignment, and they had a problem with the malconvoker using evil creatures, and the malconvoker used it anyways and forced the party to change their characters to cater to him, you are right, this is absolutely unacceptable.

The deal with the Malconvoker is that the character is good and, iirc, sanctioned by whatever church they are a cleric or follower of. While they use the power of evil, they are not innately evil themselves. Through the class ability of "at will detect evil" any paladin will be able to see this. Any paladin will approach said individual and, albeit in a hostile manner most likely, challenge the individual on their use of evil acts. Once this is explained, why would a paladin not associate with a non-evil character?


So i guess my amended argument is: Because Paladins use d&d's definitions of good and evil, Paladins prevent players from doing so many nond&d good acts to the point that players don't want to play with a paladin in the party, because it forces them all to play like Paladins themselves.

I never disagreed with this. I'm saying Paladins are not cooperative in character creation. and is why everyone hates them, especially me.

I read nothing in a paladin's class features that says "The rogue can't be a rogue". I do see a code of conduct and repricussions for failing to uphold said code, but an intelligent player can make sure they're staying in their lane without imposing on other characters unless it it outright, explicitly disallowed (this only applies to knowingly associating with evil characters). That's it. As long as you're not evil, you can associate with a paladin. The code doesn't say "you can't associate with a chaotic person". Nowhere does it even remotely say that.

There is nothing from a Paladin's class features that makes the Paladin any more or less cooperative than ANY other class, because it's the players that have to cooperate. And contrary to your opinion, not everyone hates paladins.


I was thinking more along the lines of false flag operations, forging official documents and impersonating officials, lying to the masses when the truth would cause a civil war, that kind of stuff. Paladins say no to all of these.

Nothing in the Paladin's code says they absolutely must tell every little secret they have. They do have to be honest, but that doesn't mean being silly about it. If you have information that would cause a civil war, tell the truth but don't tell it in a way that causes a civil war. This happens every day everywhere all the time.


I guess that's true for me at least. Summon Monster, Planar Binding, The Dead Walk, but that still doesn't deny the fact that paladins outright stop all creative solutions, which is something I really hate.

Paladins don't outright stop anything. Again a rogue can be a rogue with or without a paladin. The paladin will just go about it a different way. Why can't the rogue sit back, watch the paladin, and if the paladin succeeds the rogue gets paid for free without having to do a thing. If the Paladin starts to fail, just slip away and solve the situation using his/her own means. What the paladin doesn't know won't hur him/her.

[Nigeretalbus]

I've recently encountered an interesting post on reddit that addresses when/if paladins should fall.

Perhaps this perspective can help clear some misunderstandings about paladins - above all, paladins require the DM & players to take moral challenges seriously.
The quote below was written from a Pathfinder perspective, hence the references to Golarion, but it holds enough merit to be applicable to DnD.



[Preceding question: Is it time to get rid of the "gotcha quests" for paladins?]
Totally. Full disclosure: I'm a PhD in ethics, and I think all the time about morality in Pathfinder. Not surprisingly, my first character ever was a paladin, and it remains a favourite class of mine.

Anyway...it is absolutely bananas that people interpret the paladin alignment restriction in such a way as to even make this a possibility. Granted, the RAW on paladin alignment restriction is rather ambiguous (big surprise: most conceptual issues which involve morality tend to be at least somewhat complex)...but this interpretation is extremely uncharitable in the least.

Paladins receive their powers, and the ensuing alignment restriction, from their devotion to a deity and that deity's code of conduct (outside Golarion, this can of course be to an abstract concept and not necessarily to a deity...but for simplicity's sake, let's just talk about it with regard to deities; everything I'm going to say will basically apply to abstract concept devotion anyway).

Now, it's not like everybody's born a paladin and most just eventually lose their abilities; only the most dedicated and devout and strong-willed ever become even 1st-level paladins. These are people who are exceptional enough to have been more or less hand-picked by their deities for paladinhood, primarily due to their uprightness and dedication to the right and the good, to crib a bit from W.D. Ross.
And it's not like these folks, once they become paladins, just put their feet up and rest on their laurels. By their nature, and motivated by the favour shown by their god, paladins will, for the most part, continue to strive to do good, to better themselves and the world around them. This is neither a coincidence nor a contingent fact; this is part of what it means to be a paladin.

Of course, some paladins fall: they lose their faith, or are genuinely corrupted, or just can't maintain their commitment, or somehow fall otherwise. They are mortal; they are fallible, even though they are selected largely because they are less fallible than most. Some might fall by way of terrible trauma, some by irresistible greed or ambition or other temptation, some by hubris, some by simple world-weariness. For whatever reason, fallen paladins no longer show the dedication and discipline and strength of character that made them paladins in the first place. In such cases, one can only imagine the disappointment felt by their gods, who put such trust in these mortals, only to see it betrayed...

Now, with all that in mind...we're supposed to believe that a god would strip a paladin of her powers for some kind of "gotcha" technicality, some immoral act committed in an impossible scenario? That's nonsense. There's not some obtuse contract full of legalese and surprise clauses in place: a paladin is so by virtue of her own virtue, her character, and not just her actions. A god cannot (and would not, since gods aren't stupid petty children) expect a paladin to control the whole world, such that she would never get herself into a morally difficult or troublesome situation; indeed, if anything, a god should expect that its paladins would deliberately put themselves into such situations, since it's these circumstances which most call for a paladin. And when difficult struggles like these don't turn out to be as clean and perfect and neatly tied up as we would want (another big surprise: that's life), forcing the paladin into a difficult choice, we're supposed to believe that a god would punish its paladins for making the attempt?

Because, of course, that's the real test: making the attempt. What a god can and should expect of its paladins (and, of course, since we're talking about paladins, we're talking about lawful/good gods, it should go without saying) is that they struggle with morality, that they strive to be better, that they constantly examine their consciences and their codes of conduct and do their very best to live by those tenets, while also championing law and goodness in a world which can be very messy indeed. Such people don't go around never feeling guilt and never doing anything difficult; quite the opposite! The best paladins will always be wondering how they could have done more, been better, shone brighter!

As a result of all of that, whenever a paladin (not a fallen one, of course) finds herself in a moral dilemma (following a good order from a tyrant; killing one person to save ten from a passive death; freeing an unfairly-tried-but-probably-guilty prisoner from justice, knowing that he will likely kill again; etc.), she will do her absolute very best to make the right decision, and whatever she decides, she will likely wrack her soul for days (maybe the rest of her life?), wondering if she did the right thing, or how she might do better next time.

It is patently absurd to think that her god, witnessing this difficulty and the ensuing internal struggle, will just say "Sorry! Turns out that the right thing to do was to keep that unfairly-tried killer in prison, because utilitarianism is the right normative theory and what you did was consistent with deontology but not utilitarianism! No more Smite Evil for you!" It is the struggle and the commitment which defines the paladin. If anything, any responsible deity will be more likely to punish the "paladin" who always happens to act rightly while never seriously questioning her own actions or intending to do right, than the one who does her best to make difficult choices with careful reflection and consideration, even if she might sometimes have bad moral luck.

What lesson should you take from this wall of text, GMs? It's very simple: stop punishing paladins for being good paladins who try their best to fight evil!


A paladin should only fall because she has stopped being the kind of person who becomes a paladin in the first place.

The paladin who, in the heat of battle, kills the innocent farmer because he happened to be possessed by a demon, and then feels guilt for her actions and reflects upon what she might have done wrong (and how she might improve next time), every bit deserves the name "paladin". But, if the paladin in your game is always self-righteous and dogmatic, never questions her own actions or "righteousness", and never even risks getting into difficult situations because of the possibility of moral messiness...well, that person lacks moral courage and discipline and virtue, and that person might be due for a couple of days without paladin powers, just to learn a little humility and get a chance to atone for and correct her ways, if for nothing else...

[Gildedragon]

I never disagreed with this. I'm saying Paladins are not cooperative in character creation. They are the most uncooperative class in the entire game. and is why everyone hates them, especially me.

I mean they aren't much more uncooperative than say: a true necromancer, which means playing a Good cleric is out, cause using turn undead, or area effect healing spells, will hurt allied minions
It isn't much more uncooperative than wanting to play a flagrantly Evil character, which means the Good aligned PCs gotta wrack their brains to figure out WHY in the name of the Twin Layers of Bytopia they are hanging out with Evilman McVillain who will backstab them eventually, it isn't too much more restrictive than playing with a ranger whose favored enemy is a Humanoid race (restricting player race choice).
Note the "Knowingly" in the code of conduct. All this means is that a paladin won't side with obvious villains; if the party member isn't a monster to the point the pecadillos can't be ignored, then there is no trouble.

[Zanos]

That guy clearly doesn't have a PHD in d20 ethics. Considering you can just call up an aspect of pure Good and ask them what the morally Good choice is, there's not a whole lot to question.

Also, as far as I know Paladins aren't devoted to a particular deity or their code, and the Gods are stupid petty children much of the time. Might be different in Golarion, I guess.

[RoboEmperor]

I, personally, know and have known many people who have huge problems with disturbing the dead and summoning vile evils. As a rule, these people never summon the fiendish summons or use pretty much any evil spell. I wouldn't call these people "abnormal". I would, in fact, calling people who were ok with the raising of the dead to imperfect life (skeletons/zombies/etc) and summoning creatures that have been twisted by evil (fiendish creatures or fiends) the abnormal ones. The vast majority of people I play with and have played with (3 people being the exception out of 12 years of playing) were not ok with animating the dead and summoning fiends. In my experience "Most People" have a problem with using necromancy and fiends/demons/devils/undead and view the use as evil.

This is surprising as it is completely the opposite of mine, but maybe it's because I play online and you play with people in real life. Online d&d people are usually athiests who played a diablo2 or a skyrim like game. Torchlight 2 is also a common one.

I use fiends as beatsticks, nothing more, and go out of my way to ensure they are nothing more than beatsticks, but I guess if a player made the demons do what it usually does to its foes I could see this being a problem, like that dragging souls into hell thing. Some of the monster descriptions are truly horrific. I even avoid the ones that look horrifically bloody.


The deal with the Malconvoker is that the character is good and, iirc, sanctioned by whatever church they are a cleric or follower of. While they use the power of evil, they are not innately evil themselves. Through the class ability of "at will detect evil" any paladin will be able to see this. Any paladin will approach said individual and, albeit in a hostile manner most likely, challenge the individual on their use of evil acts. Once this is explained, why would a paladin not associate with a non-evil character?

I give you this quote:

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.

Casting evil spells regularly offends her moral code. The whole schtick of malconvoker is using evil conjuration spells for good. They have a class feature "Unrestricted Conjuration" exactly for that, but that does not change the Paladin's morals.

This holds true for a good alignment necromancer, like a warlock or wizard.


A paladin is required to Respect the Law. Respecting the Law means using it at any means when it's viable. This does not stop a rogue from going about using his/her methods.

For example, there is a necromancer poisoning the water source for a town. Nobody in town can figure it out, but the party has. They approach the solution from multiple different angles. The paladin goes to the magistrate and brings the accusation to the halls of justice. The rogue goes to "Gather Information" which is brief for "i'm going to break in to the house and steal the poison that the necromancer is using". While the Paladin is off doing the lawful thing, the rogue is off doing the chaotic thing. The party successfully stops the necromancer and saves the town. In the end, the paladin finds out that the rogue snuck in stole the poison (breaking and entering/stealing) and so rightfully (according to the law) turns the rogue in to the magistrate. The paladin then, however, intercedes on behalf of the rogue stating that, while the character did not follow the law, his actions upheld the very mission of the town's guard, to protect the people and town. He followed the law through to the end and got the rogue off without punishment. The Paladin remained Lawful Good through the who thing and did not ever once breech his code.

I read nothing in a paladin's class features that says "The rogue can't be a rogue". I do see a code of conduct and repricussions for failing to uphold said code, but an intelligent player can make sure they're staying in their lane without imposing on other characters unless it it outright, explicitly disallowed (this only applies to knowingly associating with evil characters). That's it. As long as you're not evil, you can associate with a paladin. The code doesn't say "you can't associate with a chaotic person". Nowhere does it even remotely say that.

Rogues being rogues offends the paladin's morals. Paladins cannot turn a blind eye to this and if the rogue continues to offend, by RAW paladin must leave. Letting the Rogue do his thing knowing full well that he/she is gonna do something illegal is turning a blind eye. The Rogue must fool the paladin in addition to everything else, hence why a rogue would hate playing with a paladin.

I guess you can make an argument that depending the deity, Paladins can let the ends justify the means, but I dunno, all the lawful good deities tend to be lawful stupid.


There is nothing from a Paladin's class features that makes the Paladin any more or less cooperative than ANY other class, because it's the players that have to cooperate. And contrary to your opinion, not everyone hates paladins.

I refer you to the above quote. No player in the party can offend the paladin's morals. 0 wiggle room. The rogue cannot break/enter places unless the paladin's code allows it.


Nothing in the Paladin's code says they absolutely must tell every little secret they have. They do have to be honest, but that doesn't mean being silly about it. If you have information that would cause a civil war, tell the truth but don't tell it in a way that causes a civil war. This happens every day everywhere all the time.

Top of my head, Batman The Dark Knight. If word got out that the crusader for crime turned out to be a criminal himself, every person this crusader put in jail would be released (at least in the movie), so to prevent that Batman takes the fall for all of this crusader's crimes. A paladin on the other hand, would tell the truth and let the law release all the criminals put in jail.


Paladins don't outright stop anything. Again a rogue can be a rogue with or without a paladin. The paladin will just go about it a different way. Why can't the rogue sit back, watch the paladin, and if the paladin succeeds the rogue gets paid for free without having to do a thing. If the Paladin starts to fail, just slip away and solve the situation using his/her own means. What the paladin doesn't know won't hur him/her.

With a little house ruling to remove stupid stuff Paladins can be compatible with other party members, but by strict unforgiving RAW, no, paladins cannot work with rogues who continuously break in, steal, break the law, etc., and never with any spellcaster that regularly casts evil spells.

As I said before, noob paladins (not you), tend to also roleplay poorly and ruin everything, which also adds to the hate. I am not lying when I say paladins being banned on roll20 is the 2nd most common thing I see.

edit: yeah, if you get to choose the paladin's morals, I don't see a real problem with them in the party, but like I said, only experienced players can make a good, nonconflicting code.

[Nigeretalbus]

That guy clearly doesn't have a PHD in d20 ethics. Considering you can just call up an aspect of pure Good and ask them what the morally Good choice is, there's not a whole lot to question.

Also, as far as I know Paladins aren't devoted to a particular deity or their code, and the Gods are stupid petty children much of the time. Might be different in Golarion, I guess.


Actually, wether the Gods are stupid petty children depends on the DM, since they are NPCs, and the DM controls NPC behavior.

Since there are multiple Good Gods around, and they each have different interpretations of what exactly it means to be good (different portfolios, one focusing on healing, the other on self-sacrifice/heroism, the other on destroying evil, the other on justice, the other on the common good/welfare of society, the other on...), the answer you could glean via Divination or similar spells depends on who you ask.


Taking morality seriously in D&D (or Pathfinder, or everywhere else) requires thinking and talking about a complex issue, and perhaps that's not what everyone playing D&D / Pathfinder wants from a TTRPG.

[Rhyltran]

Actually, wether the Gods are stupid petty children depends on the DM, since they are NPCs, and the DM controls NPC behavior.

Since there are multiple Good Gods around, and they each have different interpretations of what exactly it means to be good (different portfolios, one focusing on healing, the other on self-sacrifice/heroism, the other on destroying evil, the other on justice, the other on the common good/welfare of society, the other on...), the answer you could glean via Divination or similar spells depends on who you ask.


Taking morality seriously in D&D (or Pathfinder, or everywhere else) requires thinking and talking about a complex issue, and perhaps that's not what everyone playing D&D / Pathfinder wants from a TTRPG.

I don't think morality in D&D is as complex as you might think. It reminds me of the star wars boards when people claim that the force's morality is subjective when the written intent is that it isn't. Light side = Good Dark Side = Bad. D&D has clear lines on what is good or evil. That's why spells have evil descriptors that are.. well.. evil.

[Zanos]

Actually, wether the Gods are stupid petty children depends on the DM, since they are NPCs, and the DM controls NPC behavior.
Sure, but I can't think of any official settings, Golarion included, where deities didn't follow the Greek mold. They're fallible, do dumb stuff a lot, and often extremely petty by moral standards.


Since there are multiple Good Gods around, and they each have different interpretations of what exactly it means to be good (different portfolios, one focusing on healing, the other on self-sacrifice/heroism, the other on destroying evil, the other on justice, the other on the common good/welfare of society, the other on...), the answer you could glean via Divination or similar spells depends on who you ask.
There are not different interpretations of Good. There are different priorities within Good, yes. But your alignment isn't "Good with respect to Pelor" or "Good with respect to Tyr", it's just Good.


Taking morality seriously in D&D (or Pathfinder, or everywhere else) requires thinking and talking about a complex issue, and perhaps that's not what everyone playing D&D / Pathfinder wants from a TTRPG.
Absolute objective morality is about as simple as it gets, and actually somewhat necessary if you're going to determine mechanical effects off of morality.

[RoboEmperor]

Sure, but I can't think of any official settings, Golarion included, where deities didn't follow the Greek mold. They're fallible, do dumb stuff a lot, and often extremely petty by moral standards.

I second this.

[Nigeretalbus]

Example of a moral dilemma in D&D:

* To kill an innocent person is an evil act.

* A ghost/demon/evil mage is possessing the body of hapless Farmer Joe, who was just watering his flowers outside and hasn't ever done anything wrong.

* Said ghost/demon/evil mage now uses his weird evil powers through the body of hapless Farmer Joe(the innocent guy), taunting Paladin Peter while conducting a ritual that will set an entire city ablaze, threatening the death of thousands (and lots of property damage, and breaking laws against arson, but let's ignore that for now)



Suddenly, TIMESTOP! (let's make it Pathfinders Mythic Timestop, which grants 24 hours of subjective time, for convenience)



Charly the Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge uses Timestop to ask a Good God/Extremely powerful being that can answer Divination/Contact other Plane/etc:
What is the "Good Act" here

-> kill the innocent farmer possessed by the evil mage/ghost/demon to stop the ritual and save the city, (The ends justify the means, utilitarism)

or

-> spare the farmer and try to put out fires/rescue civilians from burning buildings? (Inaction is technically not an evil act codified by D&D morality)
(deontology, it's not my fault the city is on fire, it's the fault of the evil mage/ghost/demon who set it on fire; my job is to avoid doing evil things and do good things as far as my abilities permit)

------------------------

The "proper" choice would actually be along the lines of:

-> Kill the farmer, save the city, then pay for a Raise Dead spell to return the farmer back to life, apologize for the unpleasant manner of freeing him.
Possibly atone at your local temple if your DM adheres very closely to RAW / has the forces of Good act as petty stupid children.


=================================

Edit:

Actually, in Pathfinder, Paladins aren't required to worship a deity.

Those that do have different codes, depending on the deity in question.

Allow me to quote a few examples:


Paladins of Torag are dedicated to protecting not just the lives but the way of life for those under their charge, and hold the ways of their chosen people as holy, especially when they are the centuries-old works and traditions of an entire race. Their tenets include the following affirmations.

* My word is my bond. When I give my word formally, I defend my oath to my death. Traps lie in idle banter or thoughtless talk, and so I watch my tongue.

* I am at all times truthful, honorable, and forthright, but my allegiance is to my people. I will do what is necessary to serve them, including misleading others if need be.

* I respect the forge, and never sully it with half-hearted work. My creations reflect the depth of my faith, and I will not allow flaws save in direst need.

* Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.


The paladins of Iomedae are just and strong, crusaders who live for the joy of righteous battle. Their mission is to right wrongs and eliminate evil at its root. They serve as examples to others, and their code demands they protect the weak and innocent by eliminating sources of oppression, rather than merely the symptoms. They may back down or withdraw from a fight if they are overmatched, but if their lives will buy time for others to escape, they must give them. Their tenets include the following affirmations.

* I will learn the weight of my sword. Without my heart to guide it, it is worthless—my strength is not in my sword, but in my heart. If I lose my sword, I have lost a tool. If I betray my heart, I have died.

* I will have faith in the Inheritor. I will channel her strength through my body. I will shine in her legion, and I will not tarnish her glory through base actions.

* I am the first into battle, and the last to leave it.

* I will not be taken prisoner by my free will. I will not surrender those under my command.

* I will never abandon a companion, though I will honor sacrifice freely given.

* I will guard the honor of my fellows, both in thought and deed, and I will have faith in them.

* When in doubt, I may force my enemies to surrender, but I am responsible for their lives.

* I will never refuse a challenge from an equal. I will give honor to worthy enemies, and contempt to the rest.

* I will suffer death before dishonor.

* I will be temperate in my actions and moderate in my behavior.

* I will strive to emulate Iomedae’s perfection.

[RoboEmperor]

Example of a moral dilemma in D&D:

* To kill an innocent person is an evil act.

* A ghost/demon/evil mage is possessing the body of hapless Farmer Joe, who was just watering his flowers outside and hasn't ever done anything wrong.

* Said ghost/demon/evil mage now uses his weird evil powers through the body of hapless Farmer Joe(the innocent guy), taunting Paladin Peter while conducting a ritual that will set an entire city ablaze, threatening the death of thousands (and lots of property damage, and breaking laws against arson, but let's ignore that for now)



Suddenly, TIMESTOP! (let's make it Pathfinders Mythic Timestop, which grants 24 hours of subjective time, for convenience)



Charly the Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge uses Timestop to ask a Good God/Extremely powerful being that can answer Divination/Contact other Plane/etc:
What is the "Good Act" here

-> kill the innocent farmer possessed by the evil mage/ghost/demon to stop the ritual and save the city, (The ends justify the means, utilitarism)

or

-> spare the farmer and try to put out fires/rescue civilians from burning buildings? (Inaction is technically not an evil act codified by D&D morality)
(deontology, it's not my fault the city is on fire, it's the fault of the evil mage/ghost/demon who set it on fire; my job is to avoid doing evil things and do good things as far as my abilities permit)

------------------------

The "proper" choice would actually be along the lines of:

-> Kill the farmer, save the city, then pay for a Raise Dead spell to return the farmer back to life, apologize for the unpleasant manner of freeing him.
Possibly atone at your local temple if your DM adheres very closely to RAW / has the forces of Good act as petty stupid children.

Is there a reason you can't nonlethally take out the farmer? Stabilized negative hitpoints count.

A good person might die trying to knock out the farmer, and if it takes too long, fails to save lives, but that's not his fault. He tried his best and just wasn't strong enough. Which one is this one?

[Nigeretalbus]

Concerning Nonlethal Takedowns -> I'm used to Pathfinder rules where Nonlethal damage in excess of the total HP turns into lethal damage.

The example farmer has probably around 6 HP total, so a properly leveled Paladin may be in danger of "accidentaly" killing the farmer even if she is dealing nonlethal damage.

[Arbane]

Example of a moral dilemma in D&D:


We can do better than that (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1368#post396939159).



On Twin Faerun, a druid(me) in a town is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the druid can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the druid is aware of this, for the druid knows trolleys. The druid is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the druid can determine the course which the trolley will take.

On the right side of the track there is a single lawful neutral cleric, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the druid steers the trolley to the right. If the cleric on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty elves (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the elves' caravan will be crossing later that night). One of the elves that will be killed would have grown up to become a Lawful Evil tyrant who would make good utilitarian halflings do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become Drizzt, while a third would invent the Vancian Magic system.

If the druid chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a Chaotic Good bard on the left side of the track, "Leftie" and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local temple that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the druid is aware of this, for the druid knows hearts. If the bard on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the cleric on the right would kill. However, "Leftie" will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten dwarves: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local temple for transplantation. A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that the carvan of elves will be spared. Among the five men killed by "Leftie" are both the wizard responsible for putting the druid at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and "Leftie" are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis spells available, however the druid does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

Assume that the druid's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other druids and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the druid chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue (Chaotic Good), while if the druid chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result (Lawful Evil). Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the druid in such a manner that the druid is never sure if it is being deceived.


QUESTION: What should I do to avoid losing my powers?

(In summary: D&D alignment system doesn't make sense when looked at too closely.)

[RoboEmperor]

(In summary: D&D alignment system doesn't make sense when looked at too closely.)

d&d as a whole doesn't make sense when looked at too closely.

[Gildedragon]

Example of a moral dilemma in D&D:

* To kill an innocent person is an evil act.

* A ghost/demon/evil mage is possessing the body of hapless Farmer Joe, who was just watering his flowers outside and hasn't ever done anything wrong.

* Said ghost/demon/evil mage now uses his weird evil powers through the body of hapless Farmer Joe(the innocent guy), taunting Paladin Peter while conducting a ritual that will set an entire city ablaze, threatening the death of thousands (and lots of property damage, and breaking laws against arson, but let's ignore that for now)



Suddenly, TIMESTOP! (let's make it Pathfinders Mythic Timestop, which grants 24 hours of subjective time, for convenience)



Charly the Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge uses Timestop to ask a Good God/Extremely powerful being that can answer Divination/Contact other Plane/etc:
What is the "Good Act" here

-> kill the innocent farmer possessed by the evil mage/ghost/demon to stop the ritual and save the city, (The ends justify the means, utilitarism)

or

-> spare the farmer and try to put out fires/rescue civilians from burning buildings? (Inaction is technically not an evil act codified by D&D morality)
(deontology, it's not my fault the city is on fire, it's the fault of the evil mage/ghost/demon who set it on fire; my job is to avoid doing evil things and do good things as far as my abilities permit)


Knock out the farmer; exercise the ghost; force the ghost to move on

Knock out farmer (Optional). Gag him. Tie him up. Toss him into a bag of holding with a bottle of air to deal with later. Put out fires.

Cast Protection from Evil on the farmer. Deal with the fires. Deal with ghost later. Possibly, if ghost impossible to exorcise, deck farmer with a continuous Protection from Evil item they can't remove.

[Nigeretalbus]

I'm somewhat confused by the needlessly complicated Druid-Trolley problem you pose there, but the actual answer is very simple:


1) The druid is not omnipotent nor omniscient. He is responsible for his moral actions in so far he can determine wether they are good or bad (or neutral, or revere nature, or have something to do with him wearing metal armor, which would be much more important for him as druid rather than the whole good/evil angle of the trolley problem - death, even sudden and "unfair" death is part of nature, so it shouldn't exactly bother him)

2) If the druid sees both the cleric and the bard before making his choice wether to go left or right, and doesn't know anything about them, his choice wether he steers left or right is morally neutral - as far as he can judge in the very short time he has, he's going to hit & likely kill a person either way.

3) Any effects from the deaths of the cleric or bard are not the moral concern of the druid, they may be part of his (good or bad) moral luck. Furthermore, he is not responsible for the actions of other persons with free will. If these persons lack free will, their choices are morally neutral.

4) As far as I know, by RAW the druid will not lose his powers from either choice - his class doesn't demand for him to be a moral paragon of any kind, but for him to "respect/revere nature" and "avoid wearing metal armor".

[Gildedragon]

We can do better than that (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1368#post396939159).



(In summary: D&D alignment system doesn't make sense when looked at too closely.)

The druid has no way of Knowing all these outcomes, and, also, a single act doesn't necessarily cause alignment shift, nor is one person responsible for the future actions of others.

As long as they honestly make an effort to act as dictated by their code, then they're probably in the clear.

Alternatively: Periapt of Faithfulness and go neener neener at the DM that now has to tell you the right answer

[Nigeretalbus]

Alright, let's look at another moral dilemma for a paladin:

The paladin comes across a city that was recently pillaged by marauders, who also burned the fields nearby and left the food stores empty. The citizens are hungry, winter is coming, and they have nothing to sell to buy food.

The paladin is traveling to fight the evil dragon nearby, but if he sold his magic sword, he could buy enough food for the citizens to survive winter.

But the dragon could kill and eat them anyway, and if the paladin has no sword, he cannot properly defend them.

(Also WBL and a PCs personal property are often *very* touchy subjects; compare the extraordinary hatred for Rust monsters / the Sunder maneuver)


What should the paladin do?

* Does he sell his sword, since he is CERTAIN that if he does so, the people will have food, but a dragon attack on the already pillaged & starving city is UNCERTAIN?

* Does he keep his sword, rushing to kill the dragon and intending buy food with the dragon's hoard, risking the starvation of children & elderly people?

[Zanos]

I ask my phylactery of-

Alternatively: Periapt of Faithfulness and go neener neener at the DM that now has to tell you the right answer
Yeah, that.


-Moral Dillema-
Either. Personal sacrifice for others = Good, and destroying Evil to protect others = Good. Although I think the Paladin might lean to slaying the dragon first, since if he disarms himself that means he won't be able to destroy Evil in the future.

He can prioritize differently, as I mentioned previously, but both of those options are objectively Good.

[Gildedragon]

Alright, let's look at another moral dilemma for a paladin:

The paladin comes across a city that was recently pillaged by marauders, who also burned the fields nearby and left the food stores empty. The citizens are hungry, winter is coming, and they have nothing to sell to buy food.

The paladin is traveling to fight the evil dragon nearby, but if he sold his magic sword, he could buy enough food for the citizens to survive winter.

But the dragon could kill and eat them anyway, and if the paladin has no sword, he cannot properly defend them.

(Also WBL and a PCs personal property are often *very* touchy subjects; compare the extraordinary hatred for Rust monsters / the Sunder maneuver)


What should the paladin do?

* Does he sell his sword, since he is CERTAIN that if he does so, the people will have food, but a dragon attack on the already pillaged & starving city is UNCERTAIN?

* Does he keep his sword, rushing to kill the dragon and intending buy food with the dragon's hoard, risking the starvation of children & elderly people?

Keep sword. Kill dragon ASAP. Distribute horde and dragon steaks to people.
Possibly use some spells to help tide people over while he gets rid of dragon.
Possibly use diplomacy to convince merchants to distribute food, and he'll repay them afterwards. Paladins have high charisma, diplomacy as class skill, and a strong reputation for honoring deals; it ought be something manageable.

Also a paladin ought'n't fall for things they can't control. Nor ought they be expected to try and solve things they can't solve.
Say an avalanche is coming to a village: the paladin ought not be expected to try and stop it with their punches.

Putting the paladin in Sophie's Choice type scenarios isn't a problem with the Paladin; it is a problem with the DM.

[Rhyltran]

The paladin is traveling to fight the evil dragon nearby, but if he sold his magic sword, he could buy enough food for the citizens to survive winter.

Choosing to not sell his sword is not an evil act. It's a neutral act at best. Even so if he's strong enough to fight dragons he's capable of doing things no other paladin can. He can do a lot more good with that kind of power.


But the dragon could kill and eat them anyway, and if the paladin has no sword, he cannot properly defend them.

(Also WBL and a PCs personal property are often *very* touchy subjects; compare the extraordinary hatred for Rust monsters / the Sunder maneuver)

Precisely. This is why he should stop the dragon. Likewise, even if he knew the dragon wouldn't attack them, something else could if he didn't have a means of protecting the innocent. Worse come to worse paladins usually buy potions and other trinkets that could aid them. If he really has to he could just sell that.

[AvatarVecna]

So, there's a thread (Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?530980-Do-You-DM-or-Play-with-Flair)), that is dangerously close to going off topic, but I'm genuinely curious to know where that topic is going so I want to start a new thread so it can be discussed freely.

The problem seems to be that a Paladin at a table forces the rest of the party to play a certain way. While that may be true in some cases, it isn't true in all, in my opinion.

What are some of the problems that people claim there are with a paladin? I'm just genuinely curious because they are one of my favorite classes and in the games that I've played in, there have never been any problems. I would, however, like to point out that the tables that I play at tend to talk about their characters openly and if someone really wants to play something evil, the other players don't play a paladin out of spite.

With the advent of Book of Exalted Deeds and essentially "other ways to play good", what are some of the lingering issues with playing a vanilla, LG, Paladin of Pelor or Heironeous with a party?

The problem is partially one of comparison: Barbarian has an alignment restriction that requires them to tend to act in a certain manner; Clerics that have deities have an alignment restriction and moral code that requires them to tend to act in a certain manner; Druids has an alignment restriction that requires them to tend to act in a certain manner; Monk has an alignment restriction that requires them to tend to act in a certain manner; finally, paladin has an alignment restriction and moral code that requires them and the people they travel with to act in a certain manner. You can be a monk in a party of backstabbing thieves, if you want, and you can be a barbarian in a party full of nobby stuck-up *******s if you want; for the vast majority of characters that have some kind of alignment restriction/moral code, only your own actions can cause you to "fall"; you have to come up with a reason why traveling with the people you travel with makes sense to avoid breaking SoD, but not coming up with a good reason to travel with them isn't itself going to make you fall, whereas with a paladin, you can follow your own moral code to the full letter and spirit 24/7, but if your allies aren't acceptable, your ass is still gonna fall. An alternative way of looking at it: a Monk's alignment restriction gives a Monk's player an excuse to play them as Lawful *******, a Cleric's alignment restriction gives a Cleric's player an excuse to play them as Preachy Good, and a Bard's alignment restriction gives a Bard's player an excuse to play them as Chaotic Lolrandom...but a Paladin's alignment restriction doesn't just give them an excuse to be both Lawful ******* and Preachy Good at the same time, it almost requires them to be to avoid falling.

That's not to say they have to played that way, just that the class kinda encourages you to police the actions of your fellow party members, lest you lose your class features because your friends decided to be *******s.

[Nigeretalbus]

Hmmm....how about a pathfinder-specific paladin dilemma!


1/2-orc Paladin (Redeemer Archetype) can adventure with evil allies as long as he *thinks* they are capable of redemption.
(Hint: All evil beings with free will are technically capable of redemption)

adventures with a Dwarven Paladin of Torag (see his lovely code above, which allows misleading others for the DWARVEN CAUSE and allows you to TAKE NO PRISONERS, NO MERCY for the DWARVEN CAUSE)

and a LN Cleric of Asmodeus (LE, so the cleric has an evil aura and detects as evil)

and an NG Gray Paladin(Paladin who can be LN/NG/LG as long as he follows an LN/NG/LG God, has a relaxed code) of Iomedae.


These four guys are adventuring in Cheliax, a big evil empire ruled by devil-worshipping nobles, with various orders of Hellknights(Super lawful knightly orders that require you to defeat a devil in single combat to join, really ruthless, LAW above all) around...

Oh, and there's the weird polytheistic faith promoted by one of these Hellknight-orders, the Order of the Godclaw that combines the worship of five different gods:

Torag(LG God of Dwarves with racist paladins, see above)
Iomedae(LG Goddess of chivalry, was a cheliaxian human paladin before ascension)
Asmodeus(LE Ruler of Hell, has a contract with the nobles that rule the country and a pit fiend serves as the evil empress' advisor)
Abadar(LN God of Civilization, Money & Trade, his clerics run their temples as banks and there is no free healing)
Irori(LN God of Self-perfection, was a weird meditating super-monk who ascended to godhood because he was so awesome at kung fu / zen)


And clerics or oracles(spontaneus divine casters, compare to favored soul in D&D) who worship this pantheon of five gods actually get spells from them.



So...I imagine the above party would have interesting opinions on how to handle various situations.

[Rhyltran]

Why can't they sit down and come to a solution they all agree upon like sane normal people would? Especially since most of them actually are good aligned. Compromise is a thing.

[OldTrees1]

Hmmm....how about a pathfinder-specific paladin dilemma!

So...I imagine the above party would have interesting opinions on how to handle various situations.

Indeed that fully functioning party would have some interesting discussions as they work together towards their goals. Although I fail to see any kind of "dilemma" about it.

[Zanos]

1/2-orc Paladin (Redeemer Archetype) can adventure with evil allies as long as he *thinks* they are capable of redemption.
(Hint: All evil beings with free will are technically capable of redemption)
If the rules say that, sure, but we aren't talking about traditional paladins at this point.


adventures with a Dwarven Paladin of Torag (see his lovely code above, which allows misleading others for the DWARVEN CAUSE and allows you to TAKE NO PRISONERS, NO MERCY for the DWARVEN CAUSE)
As far as I know, Paladin codes aren't deity specific. If he exercises that part of Torag's code he's going to fall. Luckily you can serve a deity without obeying every aspect of their dogma, but I sort of doubt this god is actually a LG deity to begin with if he actually believes in the doctrine of no mercy and no prisoners for his enemies. That's LE.


and a LN Cleric of Asmodeus (LE, so the cleric has an evil aura and detects as evil)
I always thought LN Clerics of Asmodeus, a.k.a Satan, a.k.a the Devil were a little goofy anyway.


and an NG Gray Paladin(Paladin who can be LN/NG/LG as long as he follows an LN/NG/LG God, has a relaxed code) of Iomedae.
Sure.


These four guys are adventuring in Cheliax, a big evil empire ruled by devil-worshipping nobles, with various orders of Hellknights(Super lawful knightly orders that require you to defeat a devil in single combat to join, really ruthless, LAW above all) around...
Well the Redeemer, the Paladin of Torag, and the Gray Paladin almost definitely think this place sucks, so I'm not sure why they're using it as a base of adventurers unless they're there to kill people.


Oh, and there's the weird polytheistic faith promoted by one of these Hellknight-orders, the Order of the Godclaw that combines the worship of five different gods:

Torag(LG God of Dwarves with racist paladins, see above)
Iomedae(LG Goddess of chivalry, was a cheliaxian human paladin before ascension)
Asmodeus(LE Ruler of Hell, has a contract with the nobles that rule the country and a pit fiend serves as the evil empress' advisor)
Abadar(LN God of Civilization, Money & Trade, his clerics run their temples as banks and there is no free healing)
Irori(LN God of Self-perfection, was a weird meditating super-monk who ascended to godhood because he was so awesome at kung fu / zen)
Mortals have free will, so sure. I'm not surprised that an evil empire has a religion of Orwellian doublethink.


And clerics or oracles(spontaneus divine casters, compare to favored soul in D&D) who worship this pantheon of five gods actually get spells from them.
Not all that familiar with Golarion, so I checked the wiki and that doesn't seem to be the case:

Although members of the Godclaw pay homage to the lawful doctrines of the gods Abadar, Asmodeus, Iomedae, Irori, and Torag, it is uncertain from where they get their divine power; it may be the case that their magic comes from their own convictions.




So...I imagine the above party would have interesting opinions on how to handle various situations.
Four people disagreeing with each other isn't really a moral dilemma. That's just an argument.

[Nigeretalbus]

Pathfinder paladins aren't required to worship a deity; if you worship a deity, there are some who have a different paladin code (Examples: Abadar, Shelyn, Sarenrae, Iomedae, Torag, Ragathiel).

This is a classic example of specific rules replacing general rules.

Oh, and there is the odd clause that in an early Pathfinder book (Something about the Inner Sea campaign setting) there was a line about the TN god of Magic, Nethys, with a split personality...having paladins among his clergy.

So yeah, in Pathfinder, your archetype or the deity you worship can override the standard code, and you can even be a LG paladin with the standard code that worships a TN god (though said god cares little about morals...).

[Rhyltran]

Pathfinder paladins aren't required to worship a deity; if you worship a deity, there are some who have a different paladin code (Examples: Abadar, Shelyn, Sarenrae, Iomedae, Torag, Ragathiel).

This is a classic example of specific rules replacing general rules.

Oh, and there is the odd clause that in an early Pathfinder book (Something about the Inner Sea campaign setting) there was a line about the TN god of Magic, Nethys, with a split personality...having paladins among his clergy.

So yeah, in Pathfinder, your archetype or the deity you worship can override the standard code, and you can even be a LG paladin with the standard code that worships a TN god (though said god cares little about morals...).

Still doesn't answer why they can't discuss an ideal solution that befits all of them via a compromise. Like, good characters would do.

[Nigeretalbus]

Why is the above party a moral dilemma waiting to happen?

Example A)
-> They are fighting some duergar slavers (or giants, or orcs, or goblinoids)

These are ancient enemies of dwarves, so the Dwarven paladin of torag is obligated to show no mercy, accept no surrender.

The redeemer may want to redeem them - if he worships Shelyn, his code includes tenets that he must attempt peaceful solutions to conflict and consider noone beyond redemption. If not, his archetype still demands that he considers redemption carefully before killing.

The Gray paladin probably wants to convince everyone to take the matter a little less seriously, after all they could retrain to change their archetypes with a few days and some negligible GP costs...

and the LN / LE Cleric plays the devil's advocate because he loves to argue/debate, and the three factions here are three different interpretations of good that don't concern him.

[Rhyltran]

Why is the above party a moral dilemma waiting to happen?

Example A)
-> They are fighting some duergar slavers (or giants, or orcs, or goblinoids)

These are ancient enemies of dwarves, so the Dwarven paladin of torag is obligated to show no mercy, accept no surrender.

The redeemer may want to redeem them - if he worships Shelyn, his code includes tenets that he must attempt peaceful solutions to conflict and consider noone beyond redemption. If not, his archetype still demands that he considers redemption carefully before killing.

The Gray paladin probably wants to convince everyone to take the matter a little less seriously, after all they could retrain to change their archetypes with a few days and some negligible GP costs...

and the LN / LE Cleric plays the devil's advocate because he loves to argue/debate, and the three factions here are three different interpretations of good that don't concern him.

Those races are unlikely to surrender. They're more likely to re-treat when things look bad. Even if they did surrender the Dwarf has several options. He can follow his deities tenets to the letter and fall for being unforgiving and merciless or he can accept a compromise of terms within the party. The other come to a safe compromise. Plus values can be negotiated. Is he really showing mercy by handing them over to the town for justice when said justice is likely execution anyway?

[Nigeretalbus]

The Dwarven paladin wouldn't fall for being unforgiving/merciless as long as that is covered by his code.
The Torag-specific code replaces the standard paladin code.

[OldTrees1]

Why is the above party a moral dilemma waiting to happen?

Example A)
-> They are fighting some duergar slavers (or giants, or orcs, or goblinoids)

These are ancient enemies of dwarves, so the Dwarven paladin of torag is obligated to show no mercy, accept no surrender.

The redeemer may want to redeem them - if he worships Shelyn, his code includes tenets that he must attempt peaceful solutions to conflict and consider noone beyond redemption. If not, his archetype still demands that he considers redemption carefully before killing.

The Gray paladin probably wants to convince everyone to take the matter a little less seriously, after all they could retrain to change their archetypes with a few days and some negligible GP costs...

and the LN / LE Cleric plays the devil's advocate because he loves to argue/debate, and the three factions here are three different interpretations of good that don't concern him.

I am still failing to see the moral dilemma. Sure it is an interesting situation and would be a fun background for exploring the characters through roleplay, but there are several easy answers.

People with different opinions being faced with a situation that causes them to discuss those opinions is not a moral dilemma. Honestly it is one of the 5 major reasons people like playing Paladins.

[Sam K]

What's right with the paladin?

I mean, the concept is a classic fantasy trope. Holy warrior, shining knight, paragon of virtue.

How it was implemented leaves something to be desired.

Having a paladin in the party is driving a ****ty car that only runs on premium and breaks down of you don't go to church every sunday. And that can only be serviced by Ned Flanders. Clearly you shouldn't drive this kind of car if you don't plan on going to church every sunday and don't like Ned. But even if you do, being sick one sunday or needing service when Ned is on vacation will leave you permanently car-less. And the car wasn't even good to start with!

Clearly you shouldn't play a paladin in a party where Game of Thrones sets the standard for morality. Just like you (probably)shouldn't play a LG monk in a party of anarchists, or a druid in a party of lumberjacks. But even in a party of generally Lawfull and Good characters, the paladin just comes with a lot of risk and, and this is important, ALMOST NO UPSIDE.

Even if a paladin is played in a party and campaign that accomodates paladins, falling is still a huge risk. You don't want to go into war with a gun that frequently jams, and you don't go into the caverns of very dangerous things with a team mate that may lose all their class abilities at the drop of a hat. Even when the paladins direct hotline to the guys above is working, it doesn't provide much. The paladin class abilities are pretty meh, even if you get all the high stats you need for it to even work, and the decent ones are selfish (cha to saves, the most iconic ability, is self only). Considering that the paladin asks a lot of the party it doesn't actually bring much in return. Considering the requirements, you'd expect the payouts to be better.

So what's wrong with the paladin? It doesn't work in a lot of parties (which is fine), but even when it works, it works poorly.

[Nibbens]

Pathfinder paladins aren't required to worship a deity; if you worship a deity, there are some who have a different paladin code (Examples: Abadar, Shelyn, Sarenrae, Iomedae, Torag, Ragathiel).

This is a classic example of specific rules replacing general rules.

Oh, and there is the odd clause that in an early Pathfinder book (Something about the Inner Sea campaign setting) there was a line about the TN god of Magic, Nethys, with a split personality...having paladins among his clergy.

So yeah, in Pathfinder, your archetype or the deity you worship can override the standard code, and you can even be a LG paladin with the standard code that worships a TN god (though said god cares little about morals...).

Truth.

Somewhere on a thread from about a year ago, we broached the subject of paladins worshiping evil gods. Needless to say, it can be done - just with a lot of role-play. The example we came up with was an Orc Paladin who worships Nulgreth, the CE god of Orcs.

He would need to view his god as sort of like the racist old uncle that comes to your family reunions. You can't get rid of the guy, he's part of your heritage. So you pay him lip service and follow through with token rights (as long as they're not evil) and continue to go about doing good throughout the realm. Paladin's in PF don't specifically get their spells from a god, so, yeah. The Paladin worships an evil god but never falls. It would take some interesting RP but would create some amazing scenarios if done right.

Lastly;

to the OP - nothing's wrong with a pally. Especially when you team up with your DM before the game starts to create a story arc for yourself. I had a player who wanted to start in pally, fall pretty early, explore other classes, then around level 10 or so, be redeemed in his paladin-hood. Worked out pretty well, and the other players (who were unaware of the plans) were pretty blown away by the story that was unfolding right before their eyes. That's the way, IMHO, we should look at paladins - as part of an ever evolving story.

Dms who actively seek to fall their paladins are the ones at fault when they do.

[Florian]

You play the Paladin, not the Code. The Paladin is a regular being, with personality, morals, aims, goals, opinion on matters, isn´t omnipotent and fallible like any normal being - they just try to hold to a higher standard. What they´re not are mindless detect-and-smite-droids like some make them out to be.

That´s why a lot of the dilemmas here are meaningless, as they only work with absolut knowledge.

You´re also not "locked in" by your choices. This is no multiple choice test where you only can give one answer. Only that mentality makes the prior "Godclaw" scenario unsolvable.

[Nigeretalbus]

You play the Paladin, not the Code. The Paladin is a regular being, with personality, morals, aims, goals, opinion on matters, isn´t omnipotent and fallible like any normal being - they just try to hold to a higher standard. What they´re not are mindless detect-and-smite-droids like some make them out to be.

That´s why a lot of the dilemmas here are meaningless, as they only work with absolut knowledge.

You´re also not "locked in" by your choices. This is no multiple choice test where you only can give one answer. Only that mentality makes the prior "Godclaw" scenario unsolvable.


This is an excellent statement that displays the proper attitude for roleplaying complex characters; this is an attitude that can deal with moral challenges.

Hence I'm of the opinion that neither the DM nor players should treat paladins or any characters with strong moral values as "mindless droids" of any kind.
That way, morality in DnD isn't cliche-laden Black-and-White with "always correct" answers to any situation, nor do paladins impose lose-lose situations onto themselves and their party by nature of existing at all.

[AnimeTheCat]

You know... Something that I just looked at kind of makes me think that people over-react to "paladins falling".

The SRD says:


Ex-Paladins
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.

Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than paladin may never again raise her paladin level, though she retains all her paladin abilities.

I get that under associates it says that a paladin won't continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. But the Moral code is not dictated by the code of conduct. From what I can see and read, as long as the paladin does not willingly do evil things, and so long as the paladin doesn't Grossly violate the code of conduct, he/she won't fall. Now, Grossly means in a very obvious and unacceptable manner; flagrantly or extremely; excessively. That, to me, says that as long as you're not pillaging a village of totally innocent people, taking an apple without permission or lying to prevent a war or rebellion shouldn't cause a paladin to fall. A small lie to serve a good purpose is not very obvious nor in an unacceptable manner nor is it an extreme or excessive violation of the code.

On a second note, stealing may not violate the paladin's morals. He/she just may choose to follow the law as opposed to breaking it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that stealing offends his/her moral code.

[Pleh]

This is an excellent statement that displays the proper attitude for roleplaying complex characters; this is an attitude that can deal with moral challenges.

Hence I'm of the opinion that neither the DM nor players should treat paladins or any characters with strong moral values as "mindless droids" of any kind.
That way, morality in DnD isn't cliche-laden Black-and-White with "always correct" answers to any situation, nor do paladins impose lose-lose situations onto themselves and their party by nature of existing at all.

Unless the DM lets you play an Inevitable (or some PC construction to resemble an Inevitable, like a Warforged Paladin/Inquisitor build) in which case you actually ARE playing a "Mindless droid" type character.

I always loved Data from Star Trek, especially the episodes that tried to emphasize exactly how inhuman he really was. He generally had two kinds of episodes centered on him: "Look how surprisingly human he is" and "Look how surprisingly inhuman he is".

There IS a place for dramatic tension between heroic characters when one of the good guys is literally incapable of defying his "programming." It has to be something the whole party can agree to and enjoy, but it can be another angle to build intrigue upon.

As with anything else in the game, it shouldn't be a surprise or a burden on the other players who weren't looking for or prepared to make characters compatible with this kind of story or playstyle.

The problem with the Paladin is that is rather implies that this was meant to be a default style of play, when it really should have been a sidebar to mention as a popular add-on feature as many ancillary rules are.

[Pugwampy]

I dont see why a Paladin suffers restrictions yet a cleric does not ?

Its seems logical that a cleric should have more restrictions than a paladin.

[OldTrees1]

I dont see why a Paladin suffers restrictions yet a cleric does not ?

Its seems logical that a cleric should have more restrictions than a paladin.

Clerics do have restrictions, but the authors left the details up to the DMs. This only strengthens your point.

[icefractal]

It strikes me that a lot of the issues aren't problems with the Paladin, they're problems with D&D's alignment system. Specifically, there are a number of things that are specified as evil, but with no supporting fluff.

Take Animate Dead, for example. It's called out as particularly evil, but the default fluff is pretty much just creating a corpse-robot, which to many people does not actually seem evil. Things like that are incomplete, and the GM/group need to fix that, in one of two ways:
A) Declare they're not evil. No evil tag, Paladins don't mind it, it's just a normal spell.
B) Create a sufficient fluff reason why they're evil. Using Animate Dead as an example, perhaps undead are sustained by draining life force from people. For every year that a Zombie stays animated, a random sapient creature will die a year sooner. More potent undead, like a Lich, might drain it faster. Maybe the "vile act" in becoming a Lich is simply deciding that another year of (un)life for you is worth more than a year lost for 100+ other people, and then continuing to make that choice.


Once that's done, I think a lot of the Paladin problems go away. After all, if you have characters like:

"Bob is evil because every few weeks, he kidnaps someone who won't be missed for a while and skins them alive."

"Fred is evil because he acquires people's debts and then makes them work in increasingly bad conditions until they 'voluntarily' sign their souls over to him."

Then it should come as no surprise that a Paladin - or any decent person really - doesn't want to work with them.

[Hackulator]

It strikes me that a lot of the issues aren't problems with the Paladin, they're problems with D&D's alignment system. Specifically, there are a number of things that are specified as evil, but with no supporting fluff.

Take Animate Dead, for example. It's called out as particularly evil, but the default fluff is pretty much just creating a corpse-robot, which to many people does not actually seem evil. Things like that are incomplete, and the GM/group need to fix that, in one of two ways:
A) Declare they're not evil. No evil tag, Paladins don't mind it, it's just a normal spell.
B) Create a sufficient fluff reason why they're evil. Using Animate Dead as an example, perhaps undead are sustained by draining life force from people. For every year that a Zombie stays animated, a random sapient creature will die a year sooner. More potent undead, like a Lich, might drain it faster. Maybe the "vile act" in becoming a Lich is simply deciding that another year of (un)life for you is worth more than a year lost for 100+ other people, and then continuing to make that choice.


Once that's done, I think a lot of the Paladin problems go away. After all, if you have characters like:

"Bob is evil because every few weeks, he kidnaps someone who won't be missed for a while and skins them alive."

"Fred is evil because he acquires people's debts and then makes them work in increasingly bad conditions until they 'voluntarily' sign their souls over to him."

Then it should come as no surprise that a Paladin - or any decent person really - doesn't want to work with them.

The mistake you're making is believing your ideas of right or wrong have anything to do with good an evil in the d&d world. In a world with gods, what is good and evil is determined by divine decree.

[Vaern]

I mean, you could argue that animating the dead doesn't hurt anyone and isn't inherently evil all you want, but I don't think there are a lot of good aligned characters who would be willing to allow you to desecrate graves or defile the corpses of your fallen foes even if you took the descriptor off of the spell.

[digiman619]

I mean, you could argue that animating the dead doesn't hurt anyone and isn't inherently evil all you want, but I don't think there are a lot of good aligned characters who would be willing to allow you to desecrate graves or defile the corpses of your fallen foes even if you took the descriptor off of the spell.

Well, you could go Dresden Files route and say that only raising humaniods is evil; raising animals are fine.

[Vaern]

Well, you could go Dresden Files route and say that only raising humaniods is evil; raising animals are fine.
I actually animated a couple of sharks (as a chaotic good bard/sublime chord, arcane casters not being strictly limited against spells with alignment descriptors like divine casters) to carry loot for the party while we were exploring underwater. We later added an NPC paladin to the party who was not at all happy to learn of my abominable aquatic beasts of burden, but he was eventually convinced to turn a blind eye to them.

[rel]

My favorite Paladin is one I'm playing in 5e, where Wisdom can be a dump stat*. Paladins who dump Wisdom are best Paladins, because they are easily led astray by clever evil (or even just chaotic) party members. (She's even more fun because she's a Drow, so is her terribleness at Paladinhood genetic, or just specific to her because of her 8 Wisdom?)

* I've introduced a feat into my 3.5 games that makes Paladin spellcasting CHA-powered to make it possible here, too -- though on second thought making them spend a feat on that, or the one that makes all CHA-powered abilities WIS-powered, seems cruel to inflict on an already low-powered class, I might just alter the regular Paladin to "pick Charisma or Wisdom -- all Paladin abilities that key off one or the other instead keys only off the one you pick".

Good to see my group isn't the only one playing paladins as more clueless than a professional wrestling referee.


'My two comrades johny evil guy and bob bad dood? They are clearly not evil because they told me they were not evil. '
'Use my detect evil power? Well, if you insist.'
*Slowly charges up power while evil party members leave the room / pull out their lead sheets.*

'Nope no evil here. But I'd better check the next room just to be sure'
*paladin leaves the room. players loot the place.*

'No evil there either. say didn't this room previously contain the funds stolen from the orphanage last week? Well, if neither of you saw them I must have been mistaken'
*evil player summons demons again*

'By the gods, fiends we must stop them.'
*evil player bluffs*

'Illusionary demons you say? How clever.'

'This area seems steeped with evil. For your own safety remain here friends while I scout ahead.'
*paladin leaves. Evil player takes advantage of a standing desecrate spell to raise a really big skeleton. then wraps it in plus sized white robes coated in glitter.*

'I have searched the area and found nothing. Ah, well done my goodly friend you have summoned another good outsider to help us. Why it seems even shinier than the last.'

[icefractal]

The mistake you're making is believing your ideas of right or wrong have anything to do with good an evil in the d&d world. In a world with gods, what is good and evil is determined by divine decree.Yes, but that's an unsatisfying answer. If you're going to call the alignments Good and Evil, those aren't arbitrary words, they have meaning to the players, and the IC meaning should be compatible with that. Also, what purpose is Green vs Purple alignment serving anyway? If you just want teams that fight each-other there's a lot of better premises to use.


I mean, you could argue that animating the dead doesn't hurt anyone and isn't inherently evil all you want, but I don't think there are a lot of good aligned characters who would be willing to allow you to desecrate graves or defile the corpses of your fallen foes even if you took the descriptor off of the spell.This relies on one big premise that a number of people (including myself) don't take as axiomatic: that the corpse has any bearing on the deceased person's soul, or, for that matter, any relevance at all besides possible sentimental value for those who knew the person.

In D&D, how the afterlife works is known, so we can say exactly what relevance the corpse has to the deceased:
1) It allows the person to be raised from the dead more easily.
2) There is no number two.

So while making it harder to resurrect someone might be an evil act, it very well might not - if the person were sufficiently evil/dangerous that you intended them to stay dead (and if you didn't, why did you kill them to begin with?), or if resurrection is impossible anyway. And for that matter, 99.999% of people in D&D don't get raised from the dead anyway.

Of course there's also possible emotional trauma to people who knew the deceased, seeing them walking around as a zombie. But:
1) That's only the same amount evil as defacing a statue of the deceased, or going around mocking them.
2) It's in many cases irrelevant, because those people aren't around and/or it's going to be an unrecognizable skeleton anyway.

TL;DR - Not a reason that's very compelling for me, although YMMV.

[Florian]

Let me put it this way: Alignment should be power. Drop out of alignment, you lose access to that power. One of the problems with the D&D alignment system and the classes (as well as individual discreet rules elements), is that some classes represent this connection (Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger), some have only a taboo (Barbarian, Bard) and others are entirely unaffected by it (Fighter, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard).

The fun of roleplaying aside, this is totally stupid. The reward for actually caring about playing one of the aligned classes is just... not to fall. Hurray! That is accentuated by the unaffected classes having the moral flexibility to do whatever they like to, or at least think what is necessary. This probably leads to the situation that some people see the Paladin as a burden for the whole party.

Somehow, I do like the more brutal "alignment" system used in L5R better.

[RoboEmperor]

Take Animate Dead, for example. It's called out as particularly evil, but the default fluff is pretty much just creating a corpse-robot, which to many people does not actually seem evil. Things like that are incomplete, and the GM/group need to fix that, in one of two ways:
A) Declare they're not evil. No evil tag, Paladins don't mind it, it's just a normal spell.
B) Create a sufficient fluff reason why they're evil. Using Animate Dead as an example, perhaps undead are sustained by draining life force from people. For every year that a Zombie stays animated, a random sapient creature will die a year sooner. More potent undead, like a Lich, might drain it faster. Maybe the "vile act" in becoming a Lich is simply deciding that another year of (un)life for you is worth more than a year lost for 100+ other people, and then continuing to make that choice.

Desecration and mutilation of a corpse. In real life, if you replace a corpse's skeleton with a robotic skeleton and have it move around, Im pretty sure everyone is gonna say that's evil.

"Good" people in history buried their slain enemies. I think this is why Animate Dead is evil.

[Footman]

Actually if the DM and the Players work together you can make Evil Alignments and Paladins work.
The Key Features here are: Connections and Compromise.
Aligment isn't a Jacked made of Stone. No Human, not even a Paladin will always 100% of the Time Act "Lawful Good", he might make some Chaotic, or neutral Actions here and there. A Paladin is still a Human, and Humans have Faults. He will aspire to be Lawfull Good most of the Time, but he also sometimes might Compromise. His God will not let him Fall until he does something truly Evil. Humans are Humans after all, even the best of them can't be expected to always live up to these Moral standards all the Time.

I will give you a few Examples. Here you have a Paladin Mr. StickintheButt. There you have a Chaotic Evil Sorcerer Mr. Crazyslaughterer. Both Characters have no connection with each other. Mr. Stickinthebutt is your Typical Paladin. Mr. Crazyslaughter is your Typical Evil Maniac, who loves to kill People for the Evulz.
Both have no Connection with each other. Both are Fanatics in thier Alignment. If they meet, one of them will Die. Now, but if we want to make this work,...

As a DM you can make these to Work together if both of them COMPROMISE.
Session 1: Mr. Stickinthebutt is called by his Superiors. A Great Evil BBEG threatens the Land, and there is only one Magic MacGuffin that can Stop him! The Problem is the MacGuffin can only be wielded by People of a Special Bloodline. Now the Chruch found the last living Person that shares that Bloodline. It is the infamous Crazyslaughterer. Now the Curch would like nothing more than to Execute Crazyslaughterer, but they need him to Stop the BBEG. Crazyslaughterer now has a Mark of Justice on him, and the Paladin as a Companion, that keeps him somewhat in Check. He can unleash his Destruction and curelity on the Enemy, but the Paladin will make sure no Innocent will come to harm.

And just like this you made a Chaotic Evil Character work together with a Paladin, for the Greater Good. So that Crazyslaughter plays along, he will actually get Pardon and Banishment after the Mission is done. If roleplayed well the Tension can build up through the Entire Campaign. It is actually Possible that the Paladin and the Sorcerer will have an Epic showdown after the BBEG is defeated. Or the Paladin could actually redeem the Socerer with enough effort. Maybe not enough to get him into "good" Territory, but he may get him into neutrality. Otherwise the Paladin could slowy Fall more and more into Depravity until he Falls.
A lot of Good stories are possible without Disrupting the Game.

I will give you a few other examples:
Klemptomanic Chaotic Neutral Rogue and Paladina.
One is your Standard "from the Streets" Rogue, while the Paladina is the typical fresh from Temple Paladina. Now, lets make both of them Silbings or childhood Friends, who have known each other for a long time. Of course your Players need to agree to this, but this is where Compromise and Connections come in. If they are okay with a little bit of Backstory change it can make the Game richer for anyone. So lets say they are Silbings. Paladin is the older Sister. Both of their Parents died. Paladina has been given to the Temple befor their Parents died. So Rogue needed to fend for himself on the Street, visiting Paladina often who shared her Temple Food with him so he woulnd't starve. Both of them grow to Adults, and decide its Time for Adventures!

Now Paladina finds out that her Brother is in Fact a Thief who actually is Proud of his Talents. Now will Paladina do? She will of course try to reform her Brother, and actually Take Purses back if he Steals from the Innocent. (Sir! You lost this!). But she wouldn't sell out her Brother. This will of course give her some inner Moral Conflict, which makes her Character more Interesting, but it isn't so "Evil" that she would Fall. It is rather neutral. Now if faced with a Lawful Evil Merchant for example who uses the Law to get what he wants,.... while she might not go against him Directly she will hardly Stop the Rogue if he decides to Steal from him. She might actually Help the Rogue by distracting the Merchant by talking to him.
While these to Characters will definitly have some Tension between the, they have a very close Bond which is why none of them will Sell the other out.

Save for the most Fanatical Characters, there can circumstances that make People work together:
The Necromancer and the Paladin.
We are faced with a Demon invasion. These Demons also love to devour and Destroy Souls, which is the gravestof all Sins possible! Now the Kingdom was on the Verge of gettig overrunn by Demons, when a mighty Archnecromancer stood up, ressourected Thousends of Bodies as Skeletons and actually fought the Demons to a Standstill. No one likes the Archnecromancer, but since he just saved the friggin Kingdom, the King made an Order so that no one harms them.
So the Apprentice Necromancer, and the Paladin, (The Player Characters) get sent out as Messengers, to get reinforcments from a neighbouring Kingdom. Now the Paladin will hate the Necromancy and the Undead to the Bone. But since these pervent Peoples Souls from getting eaten, wihich is even worse, he grudingly accepts it.

So in short:
Give the Good and the Evil/morally Questionable Characters a REASON to work togehter.
Give them some sort of Connection.
Make the Characters Tolerate each other to a certain extend. Fanatics will just slaughter each other ignoring Reason.
You can make nearly any Characters work with each other, if everyone DM and Players make slight Compromises and Backstory changes.
Alignment is NOT A STRAIGHT JACKET. It is a Direction in which your Character steers! Not narrow Path from which he will fall of makes he only the slightest misstep.
And lastly: Your Alignment is NOT your Characters Personality.

So what is wrong with the Paladin?
People not making Characters work together.
People using fanatic Alingment instead of Personality.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

B) Create a sufficient fluff reason why they're evil. Using Animate Dead as an example, perhaps undead are sustained by draining life force from people. For every year that a Zombie stays animated, a random sapient creature will die a year sooner. More potent undead, like a Lich, might drain it faster. Maybe the "vile act" in becoming a Lich is simply deciding that another year of (un)life for you is worth more than a year lost for 100+ other people, and then continuing to make that choice.

Various such reasons why they're evil that have been given over the history of D&D:

1. Desecration of the dead, as given by someonenoone above.
2. Raising undead has some form of negative effect on the soul of the subject - e.g. having your body raised as a zombie prevents you from going to your proper afterlife.
3. The use of specifically evil magic strengthens evil deities or some other dark force.

Obviously, all of these have certain implications or raise certain questions, but they can and have provided reasonable explanations for why certain spells are evil.

[ErebusVonMori]

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact the paladin is such a classic archetype, lots of people want to play them when new to the system and don't know how to pull it off without inter-party conflict.

Still one of the better games I've been in had myself playing a dread necromancer, a cleric of Pelor and a paladin. Now I kept the necromancy secret and simply told everyone all my knowledge of dark magic was as a curse breaker, meanwhile for most of the campaign the cleric of Pelor kept basically going 'He's evil! Just look at him, black robe and cloak, pale skin, he must be evil!" which actually made the necromancer and the paladin close allies as IC the paladin saw the cleric as increasingly irrational.

If I did something evil in front of them, I justified it, I came up with a damn good explanation for why this one time all alternatives were worse. And when the paladin finally found out he didn't go axecrazy, he declared his intent to redeem me because I was his friend.

[AnimeTheCat]

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact the paladin is such a classic archetype, lots of people want to play them when new to the system and don't know how to pull it off without inter-party conflict.

Still one of the better games I've been in had myself playing a dread necromancer, a cleric of Pelor and a paladin. Now I kept the necromancy secret and simply told everyone all my knowledge of dark magic was as a curse breaker, meanwhile for most of the campaign the cleric of Pelor kept basically going 'He's evil! Just look at him, black robe and cloak, pale skin, he must be evil!" which actually made the necromancer and the paladin close allies as IC the paladin saw the cleric as increasingly irrational.

If I did something evil in front of them, I justified it, I came up with a damn good explanation for why this one time all alternatives were worse. And when the paladin finally found out he didn't go axecrazy, he declared his intent to redeem me because I was his friend.

You're absolutely right. If that had been a new player that wanted to fit the perfect mental archetype, it may not have gone so well. I guess just the difference in play/DM for the group made the paladin more paletable (new tongue twister maybe?).

I played in a party as a paladin, with a Roge, Bard, Barbarian, and Druid. All of them were some variant of Chaotic (Mostly Chaotic Neutral, the Bard was Chaotic Good). The party would constantly urge me to do the "Lawful" thing while they would secretly go behind me and do the unlawful thing. It ended up working out well and if I, in character, ever suspected something the bard had an amazing Bluff and even though my sense motive was pretty good he was always able to outbluff me and tell me a tall tale about what they were doing while I was dealing with the guard/magistrate. In hindsight, everything worked out incredibly well now that I think about it. I was always distracting the guard or guard captain trying to do things the diplomatic/"lawful" way and that would let the party regularly do things the sneaky/unlawful way.

[King of Nowhere]

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact the paladin is such a classic archetype, lots of people want to play them when new to the system and don't know how to pull it off without inter-party conflict.

Still one of the better games I've been in had myself playing a dread necromancer, a cleric of Pelor and a paladin. Now I kept the necromancy secret and simply told everyone all my knowledge of dark magic was as a curse breaker, meanwhile for most of the campaign the cleric of Pelor kept basically going 'He's evil! Just look at him, black robe and cloak, pale skin, he must be evil!" which actually made the necromancer and the paladin close allies as IC the paladin saw the cleric as increasingly irrational.

If I did something evil in front of them, I justified it, I came up with a damn good explanation for why this one time all alternatives were worse. And when the paladin finally found out he didn't go axecrazy, he declared his intent to redeem me because I was his friend.

That seems some very good roleplaying from all the party.

[OldTrees1]

Various such reasons why they're evil that have been given over the history of D&D:

1. Desecration of the dead, as given by someonenoone above.
2. Raising undead has some form of negative effect on the soul of the subject - e.g. having your body raised as a zombie prevents you from going to your proper afterlife.
3. The use of specifically evil magic strengthens evil deities or some other dark force.

Obviously, all of these have certain implications or raise certain questions, but they can and have provided reasonable explanations for why certain spells are evil.

Various rebuttals to said reasons have also been given over the history of D&D*. This does not detract from the position of a DM ruling that the spell is evil. However it does mean that the Paladin code of conduct and spell tags would have been designed better if it naturally accounted for this difference of opinions between DMs.


* Rebuttals mentioned were not described since I do not want them to distract from the point of your post.

[Jormengand]

Evil characters ask you to be okay with what they're doing. So do good and neutral ones. That's nothing new. A paladin in specific is a problem because he has a class feature which asks him to police what people who aren't him do. A samurai, for example, just has to show honour and respect his daimyo, and so long as the players are okay travelling with someone who shows honour and respects his daimyo, that's fine. An assassin has to kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins, and so long as the players are okay with the fact that they're travelling with someone who killed someone for no other reason than to join the assassins, that's fine. A party not only has to be okay with travelling with a paladin, but also has to put up with the paladin being forced to police the party by their code of conduct.

[CharonsHelper]

* I've introduced a feat into my 3.5 games that makes Paladin spellcasting CHA-powered to make it possible here, too -- though on second thought making them spend a feat on that, or the one that makes all CHA-powered abilities WIS-powered, seems cruel to inflict on an already low-powered class, I might just alter the regular Paladin to "pick Charisma or Wisdom -- all Paladin abilities that key off one or the other instead keys only off the one you pick".

Just use Pathfinder's Paladin? Their spell-casting is already CHA based.

[Jormengand]

Just use Pathfinder's Paladin? Their spell-casting is already CHA based.

3.5 also has Serenity which shifts all the CHA stuff to WIS instead.

[Zanos]

Evil characters ask you to be okay with what they're doing. So do good and neutral ones. That's nothing new. A paladin in specific is a problem because he has a class feature which asks him to police what people who aren't him do. A samurai, for example, just has to show honour and respect his daimyo, and so long as the players are okay travelling with someone who shows honour and respects his daimyo, that's fine. An assassin has to kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins, and so long as the players are okay with the fact that they're travelling with someone who killed someone for no other reason than to join the assassins, that's fine. A party not only has to be okay with travelling with a paladin, but also has to put up with the paladin being forced to police the party by their code of conduct.
The paladin only has to police the party so far as he cannot rend aid towards chaotic or evil actions, and he cannot tolerate evil companions. That is the full extent of how the code forces the paladins companions to act.

[Hackulator]

The paladin only has to police the party so far as he cannot rend aid towards chaotic or evil actions, and he cannot tolerate evil companions. That is the full extent of how the code forces the paladins companions to act.

I mean, if a Paladin sees you doing things that are clearly evil and does not try to stop you, he's doing a piss poor job of playing a Paladin.

The real fix is to just play a Paladin with a really low intelligence score who is dumb so it's easy for the party to fool him.

[Jormengand]

The paladin only has to police the party so far as he cannot rend aid towards chaotic or evil actions, and he cannot tolerate evil companions. That is the full extent of how the code forces the paladins companions to act.

I mean, except for the part where you're entirely wrong...


Code of Conduct

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

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

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.

Better not harm or threaten anyone innocent (for any reason whatever), be part of a specific third of the world's population, or offend the paladin's (quite restrictive) moral code!

I mean, you practically can't adventure with anyone who has Sneak Attack if you're a paladin, because if they use it consistently (which of course they do) then you can't associate with them.

[CharonsHelper]

The paladin only has to police the party so far as he cannot rend aid towards chaotic or evil actions, and he cannot tolerate evil companions. That is the full extent of how the code forces the paladins companions to act.

+1

I've heard of paladins trying to make the whole party follow their code, but they really shouldn't.

Heck - while the paladin himself can't lie, nothing keeps him from keeping his mouth shut when the bard starts spinning a tall tale. He could even say about them (assuming it's true) "I would trust him/her with my life".



Better not harm or threaten anyone innocent (for any reason whatever), be part of a specific third of the world's population, or offend the paladin's (quite restrictive) moral code!

What makes you think that evil people make up anywhere near 1/3 of the population? (I swear I remember reading that the majority were some flavor of neutral.) How often are you torturing innocents that it's a problem!?

And nowhere does it say that the rest of the party has to follow the paladin's code.

It specially says "a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends),"


I mean, you practically can't adventure with anyone who has Sneak Attack if you're a paladin, because if they use it consistently (which of course they do) then you can't associate with them.

Where in the world did you get that idea?

[Jormengand]

What makes you think that evil people make up anywhere near 1/3 of the population? How often are you torturing innocents that it's a problem!?

And nowhere does it say that the rest of the party has to follow the paladin's code.

Because a book indicates that it's the case (I'll look up which if this actually becomes a relevant key point), the word "Torture" is not used but "Harm or threaten" is (Miko can't associate with the true neutral V, for example), and it doesn't say they have to follow your code but you can't associate with them if they violate it consistently.


Where in the world did you get that idea?

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

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.

[CharonsHelper]

not offend moral code =/= have to follow moral code

(and I'm a bid dubious of "code of conduct = moral code")

[RolkFlameraven]

Because a book indicates that it's the case (I'll look up which if this actually becomes a relevant key point), the word "Torture" is not used but "Harm or threaten" is (Miko can't associate with the true neutral V, for example), and it doesn't say they have to follow your code but you can't associate with them if they violate it consistently.



Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

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.

Yes, and? Unless you are saying that a Pal can't attack if they win initiative? Sneak Attack is only CALLED sneak attack, it's more like 'hitting the weak point' and their is nothing dishonorable about doing so that would offend my moral code. By that logic a Pal can't go first and can't flank.

[Jormengand]

not offend moral code =/= have to follow moral code

(and I'm a bid dubious of "code of conduct = moral code")

Irrespective of how much you torture the language, it's still clearly placing a restriction on other player characters.


Yes, and? Unless you are saying that a Pal can't attack if they win initiative? Sneak Attack is only CALLED sneak attack, it's more like 'hitting the weak point' and their is nothing dishonorable about doing so that would offend my moral code. By that logic a Pal can't go first and can't flank.

Knights can't go first or flank because they're too honourable, so that's not entirely reasonable to believe that acting with honour includes not going first or flanking. Certainly, attacking someone from hiding (the way, say, a rogue does) isn't massively honourable. Everyone with ranks in bluff can't use them either, or they offend the paladin's code.

Irrespective of the minutae, the paladin is clearly posing a restriction on how other characters act. No other class that I'm aware of, including Knight (who allows their ally the +2 bonus for flanking even though they forgo it) and Samurai, does this despite their fairly restrictive codes. Playing a class which restricts other people's options is bad.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jormengand
I mean, you practically can't adventure with anyone who has Sneak Attack if you're a paladin….

A quick-fingered combat tactic isn’t an automatic path to doom and dishonor. That’s like saying a feint is lying and therefore dishonorable, which seems a little overboard.


Originally Posted by Jormengand
Knights can't go first or flank because they're too honourable, so that's not entirely reasonable to believe that acting with honour includes not going first or flanking.

I don’t see why a knight’s code should have any bearing on a paladin’s behavior, since they’re separate classes with separate codes.


Originally Posted by Jormengand
Better not harm or threaten anyone innocent (for any reason whatever)….

I’m not seeing how this is a problem. Unless it’s an evil party, in which case the paladin is riding with the wrong posse.


Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
I was always distracting the guard or guard captain trying to do things the diplomatic/"lawful" way and that would let the party regularly do things the sneaky/unlawful way.

This sounds like a good solution through RP, and hilarious to boot.

[AnimeTheCat]

Because a book indicates that it's the case (I'll look up which if this actually becomes a relevant key point), the word "Torture" is not used but "Harm or threaten" is (Miko can't associate with the true neutral V, for example), and it doesn't say they have to follow your code but you can't associate with them if they violate it consistently.



Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

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.

So, I know what you're getting at here. The thing is, you can be chaotic and use your sneak attack yet still act with honor. For instance, if you're party has a rogue and a paladin and the rogue uses his/her sneak attack to help those in need by killing a band of raiding orcs, does that imply that the rogue acted without honor? I dont' think it does. Sneak attack simply implies that the rogue knows where to best stick the pointy end to cause the most harm. Now, if the same rogue was caught cheating at cards in the local tavern, the Paladin would probably be disappointed in him, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Paladin would be offended. In fact, why would this offend the paladin at all? It's not like the paladin was cheating. If the paladin was playing cards with the rogue and the rogue was cheating, that may offend the paladin but it's unlikely that the paladin would get all huffy and puffy and upset about it. There might be some stern fighting words, but hey the rogue can just lie and say he'll never do it again, continue adventuring with the paladin, then regain the trust.

Further, just because a paladin can't lie, steal, cheat, use poison, and has to respect authority doesn't mean that he or she is morally opposed to these actions. The code of conduct is just that. The code that the paladin must follow to remain on the righteous path. The paladin is in no way required to punish chaotic people. Stopping petty crime might fall in line with a particular paladin's morals, but not necessarily always. A paladin should have different morals depending on what deity they patronize. For example, a Paladin of Pelor would prioritize the aid of others over the law, and that even the law should be tempered with mercy meaning that it would be harder to offend one of these paladins because mercy is key. A Paladin of Heironeous would likely put being valorous in combat, being a champion against evil, and absolute devotion/loyalty to the cause of good above all meaning that, while lying would not be their course of action, it wouldn't be the end of the world so long as it is in the service of good. Additionally, while the rogue may not be as valorous as them in combat, if they prove themselves capable combatants, the Paladin would likely respect them.

The KNIGHT class on the other hand, specifically would not like the rogues sneak attack as their more restrictive code doesn't even allow them to flank a target.

[Hackulator]

Irrespective of how much you torture the language, it's still clearly placing a restriction on other player characters.



Knights can't go first or flank because they're too honourable, so that's not entirely reasonable to believe that acting with honour includes not going first or flanking. Certainly, attacking someone from hiding (the way, say, a rogue does) isn't massively honourable. Everyone with ranks in bluff can't use them either, or they offend the paladin's code.

Irrespective of the minutae, the paladin is clearly posing a restriction on how other characters act. No other class that I'm aware of, including Knight (who allows their ally the +2 bonus for flanking even though they forgo it) and Samurai, does this despite their fairly restrictive codes. Playing a class which restricts other people's options is bad.

I mean, unless you are playing a super bland character with no personality, ANY character restricts what can realistically be in the party. Whether I'm a Lawful Good Paladin or a Lawful Good Rogue, I'm not going to associate with a chaotic evil murderer. The Paladin may be more restrictive, or it may be less restrictive, depending on the character you play.

[Zanos]

Better not harm or threaten anyone innocent (for any reason whatever),
That's Evil. So I already said that.


be part of a specific third of the world's population
I already said that.


or offend the paladin's (quite restrictive) moral code!
You have to offend it consistently and not following a code yourself is not the same thing as offending it.


I mean, you practically can't adventure with anyone who has Sneak Attack if you're a paladin, because if they use it consistently (which of course they do) then you can't associate with them.
That's knights. Totally different code.

[RolkFlameraven]

Irrespective of how much you torture the language, it's still clearly placing a restriction on other player characters.



Knights can't go first or flank because they're too honourable, so that's not entirely reasonable to believe that acting with honour includes not going first or flanking. Certainly, attacking someone from hiding (the way, say, a rogue does) isn't massively honourable. Everyone with ranks in bluff can't use them either, or they offend the paladin's code.

Irrespective of the minutae, the paladin is clearly posing a restriction on how other characters act. No other class that I'm aware of, including Knight (who allows their ally the +2 bonus for flanking even though they forgo it) and Samurai, does this despite their fairly restrictive codes. Playing a class which restricts other people's options is bad.

And both of those are LAW over anything, while the Pal is GOOD/law. Just because a Knight can't flank disarm or anything like that doesn't mean a Pal can't, nor should it. That is a, horrible, feature of the Knight class and has nothing to do with the Pal.

Besides a code of conduct has nothing to do with a moral code, unless you think people who take vows of silence think all people who talk are vile people and will refuse to associate with them? Just because *I* chose not to do something, doesn't mean I think that anyone who does that thing is wrong, and it should be the same for any Pal.

[ErebusVonMori]

Except it explicitly isn't the same with the Paladin. All other classes with restrictions go 'If I break my rules I fall', Paladins restrictions read 'If I, or anyone I'm working with, break my rules I fall'

[Zanos]

Except it explicitly isn't the same with the Paladin. All other classes with restrictions go 'If I break my rules I fall', Paladins restrictions read 'If I, or anyone I'm working with, break my rules I fall'
Not following a code and not consistently offending a code are not the same thing.

[AnimeTheCat]

Except it explicitly isn't the same with the Paladin. All other classes with restrictions go 'If I break my rules I fall', Paladins restrictions read 'If I, or anyone I'm working with, break my rules I fall'

That doesn't seem like a correct assessment...


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.

If a rogue steals something, that doesn't cause the paladin to fall since the paladin didn't Grossly violate the code of conduct. In fact, so long as the paladin isn't the one ceasing to be lawful good, commiting evil acts, or violating the code they can't fall. Where are you getting the paladin falling for the acts of others in the party, based on the quote from the SRD above?

EDIT:
Grossly means in a very obvious and unacceptable manner; flagrantly, or extremely; excessively, or in a disgusting or coarse manner; vulgarly. So, based on these definitions, would you consider telling a little white lie a grossly violating a code? You know, a lie that could in fact save the lives of hundreds of people? I don't think that's a gross violation. A violation, to be sure, but not one that is a gross violation as they were doing it for someone other than themselves. In fact, unless it's habitual I don't really see lying as a gross violation at all. Killing an innocent farmer because he begged for a silver piece, that's 100% a gross violation and would also cause a shift in alignment most likely. Poisoning a local lord because he disagreed with you, definitely a gross violation. Calling someone a fart monkey... while that may be gross*, it would not be a gross violation.

*Gross, in this case meaning very rude or coarse; vulgar.

[Jormengand]

That's Evil. So I already said that.

Guess that everyone who harms anyone innocent for any reason (even accidentally - the paladin's code doesn't say to punish anyone who DELIBERATELY harms innocents) is irredemably evil.



Again: however much you torture the language ("It only says OFFEND the code, not BREAK the code!") or the truth ("No-one could possibly consider backstabbing dishonourable!") or the players ("Any problems with the paladin are exclusively the fault of the people at the table and the code isn't stupid in the slightest!") the fact is that the paladin restricts other people's behaviour. Or at least, the paladin has to leave if they do something the paladin doesn't like. The paladin has a built in "Screw you" to party coherency, in a game where good people can adventure with evil people who are, like, 70% towards saving the world (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1005.html) and rogues don't have to worry about whether their lies are offensive to their party's codes of honour. The point of D&D is that you have a bunch of people kicking in doors, looting and killing with little justification apart from "That thing's evil, let's gank it." A paladin ruins that paradigm if played anything like as-written.

[Zanos]

Guess that everyone who harms anyone innocent for any reason (even accidentally - the paladin's code doesn't say to punish anyone who DELIBERATELY harms innocents) is irredemably evil.
That wouldn't constitute a gross violation or a consistent offense.

But I imagine a paladin would probably experience some drama over hurting someone accidentally, yeah.

I think it's a little bit ironic that you're saying we're torturing the text when you come back with that.


The point of D&D is that you have a bunch of people kicking in doors, looting and killing with little justification apart from "That thing's evil, let's gank it." A paladin ruins that paradigm if played anything like as-written.
How does a paladin ruin a paradigm of ganking Evil stuff and looting it? They have smite Evil, not coddle Evil.

[Jormengand]

That wouldn't constitute a gross violation or a consistent offense.

But I imagine a paladin would probably experience some drama over hurting someone accidentally, yeah.

I think it's a little bit ironic that you're saying we're torturing the text when you come back with that.

I think it's a little ironic that you think that reading what's actually there rather than putting your own spin on it is torturing the text.


How does a paladin ruin a paradigm of ganking Evil stuff and looting it? They have smite Evil, not coddle Evil.

Well, pretty much every code of honour maintains that sneaking about and attacking from hiding is dishonourable. Unless the paladin follows the Way of the Ninja, I imagine he too thinks that stabbing enemies in the back is dishonourable too.

[Zanos]

I think it's a little ironic that you think that reading what's actually there rather than putting your own spin on it is torturing the text.
So paladins are bad because your reading is that hurting people by accident violates their code?

Ok, got it.


Well, pretty much every code of honour maintains that sneaking about and attacking from hiding is dishonourable. Unless the paladin follows the Way of the Ninja, I imagine he too thinks that stabbing enemies in the back is dishonourable too.
That isn't in the text.

[Jormengand]

So paladins are bad because your reading is that hurting people by accident violates their code?

Ok, got it.

Quit sparring with scarecrows and address the point you conveniently skipped when you were "Responding to" #114.


That isn't in the text.

"act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth),"

But don't let the facts get in the way of your posturing.

[Zanos]

Quit sparring with scarecrows and address the point you conveniently skipped when you were "Responding to" #114.
You can't bring something up then complain that someone is addressing it by saying they're strawmanning. That's the opposite of how that works.


"act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth),"

But don't let the facts get in the way of your posturing.
"And so forth" doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean. Lying and cheating are Chaotic. Poison is Evil. Hide, Move Silently, and Sneak Attack are not aligned.

In response to 114, OOTS is not a good representation of a campaign, because it's not one as Rich has said many times.

EDIT: Oh, and there's a sneak attack + smite evil feat for Paladin/Rogues in Complete Adventurer called Devoted Inquisitor, so there.

[Jormengand]

You can't bring something up then complain that someone is addressing it by saying they're strawmanning. That's the opposite of how that works.

I mean, you're not addressing it. You're just lying about what I said.


"And so forth" doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean. Lying and cheating are Chaotic. Poison is Evil. Hide, Move Silently, and Sneak Attack are not aligned.

Do you not understand what honour is or are you just pretending not to?


In response to 114, OOTS is not a good representation of a campaign, because it's not one as Rich has said many times.

Pretend I didn't post the tongue-in-cheek OOTS reference and try again if it makes you feel better.

EDIT: There's also a feat which does nothing but make you worse at truespeak so I don't trust feats as evidence that something's meant to work a certain way or that WotC understands the implications of their own rules.

[AnimeTheCat]

Do you not understand what honour is or are you just pretending not to?

So the rogue's sneak attack ability reads like this:


Sneak Attack
If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.

The rogue’s attack deals extra damage any time her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and it increases by 1d6 every two rogue levels thereafter. Should the rogue score a critical hit with a sneak attack, this extra damage is not multiplied.

Being unable to defend oneself effectively is not an indication that striking them will bring you dishonor. A paladin who trips an opponent and then strikes them while they lie on the ground is not acting dishonorably. Honor is defined as high respect; esteem, or to adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct. A conventional standard of conduct in a D&D world would likely be something along the lines of "kill it before it kills me" which would mean the precision based damage of a rogues sneak attack would be perfectly honorable. I would wager that a paladin would probably think a little less of a rogue that hid and popped out periodically to shoot poisoned darts froma blow gun, but there's nothing dishonorable about using your abilities and options in combat to aid you in victory.

[CharonsHelper]

With someone like Jormengand in the party - I probably would avoid playing a paladin to avoid drama.

With most everyone else who doesn't add a bunch of stuff to their code and make them intentionally difficult to play, they're fine.

[Jormengand]

With someone like Jormengand in the party - I probably would avoid playing a paladin to avoid drama.

With most everyone else who doesn't add a bunch of stuff to their code and make them intentionally difficult to play, they're fine.

Nice meme. Back in reality, I actually remove paladins' codes because they're crap.

[AnimeTheCat]

Nice meme. Back in reality, I actually remove paladins' codes because they're crap.

Have you been ignoring the valid points that others have been making? Seriously, I get that Paladins aren't your favorite, but maybe you're overlooking some fairly reasonable ideas, methods, and opinions. If other DM's are able to make it work without fiat, rules bending, or removing it entirely maybe there's more to it and maybe you're overthinking the code a bit.

[Jormengand]

Have you been ignoring the valid points that others have been making? Seriously, I get that Paladins aren't your favorite, but maybe you're overlooking some fairly reasonable ideas, methods, and opinions. If other DM's are able to make it work without fiat, rules bending, or removing it entirely maybe there's more to it and maybe you're overthinking the code a bit.

The paladin code is all trouble and no worth. Yes, you can work around it by ignoring it or pretending honour means something it doesn't, but even then it still restricts people's ability to play what they want if they want an evil character. The paladin problem threads aren't just born out of people being bad DMs; the fact is that the code itself is stupid and worthless.

Paladins, otherwise, are fine. The code kills it.

[Zanos]

Do you not understand what honour is or are you just pretending not to?
I understand that honor is subjective beyond what the code specifically describes as being dishonorable. I don't consider sneaking through a base of demons or necromancers dishonorable.

Is an intelligence agent dishonorable? It depends on who you ask.


EDIT: There's also a feat which does nothing but make you worse at truespeak so I don't trust feats as evidence that something's meant to work a certain way or that WotC understands the implications of their own rules.
IIRC that feat increases the saving throw DC and the truespeak DC.

In any case it's not the mechanics of the feat but the very concept that sneak attack and smite can be used by the same character that proves my point.

[RoboEmperor]

Well, pretty much every code of honour maintains that sneaking about and attacking from hiding is dishonourable. Unless the paladin follows the Way of the Ninja, I imagine he too thinks that stabbing enemies in the back is dishonourable too.

By your logic Guerilla Warfare is dishonorable, therefore...

Whenever you fight a Dragon or some super powerful boss creature, the Paladin would do a 1 on 1 fight, because a 4v1 fight isn't a fair fight, and therefore dishonorable, and he would be offended if a party member tries to help him.

Flanking anyone is also dishonorable and the paladin should step back and not help party members because a 2v1 fight is unfair, and is offended if a party member decides to help the 1st party member, and will actively try to stop them from helping.

A Paladin receiving a reward for a good deed is also dishonorable, because that would mean he did it for the money, not honor, so he would reject all wealth.

Looting corpses or chests belonging to the deceased is also dishonorable, because you're stealing from dead guys.

Your definition of honor makes the paladin literally unplayable, even with Vow of Poverty, so I believe you are completely wrong in this matter.

[Jormengand]

By your logic Guerilla Warfare is dishonorable, therefore...

Whenever you fight a Dragon or some super powerful boss creature, the Paladin would do a 1 on 1 fight, because a 4v1 fight isn't a fair fight, and therefore dishonorable, and he would be offended if a party member tries to help him.

Flanking anyone is also dishonorable and the paladin should step back and not help party members because a 2v1 fight is unfair, and is offended if a party member decides to help the 1st party member, and will actively try to stop them from helping.

A Paladin receiving a reward for a good deed is also dishonorable, because that would mean he did it for the money, not honor, so he would reject all wealth.

Looting corpses or chests belonging to the deceased is also dishonorable, because you're stealing from dead guys.

Your definition of honor makes the paladin literally unplayable, even with Vow of Poverty, so I believe you are completely wrong in this matter.

Yeah, these are all things a DM can reasonably say are dishonourable (except for recieving rewards, which isn't dishonourable at all). Another problem with the code is that you're meant to stick very strictly to a code that isn't very specifically defined.

[OldTrees1]

Have you been ignoring the valid points that others have been making? Seriously, I get that Paladins aren't your favorite, but maybe you're overlooking some fairly reasonable ideas, methods, and opinions. If other DM's are able to make it work without fiat, rules bending, or removing it entirely maybe there's more to it and maybe you're overthinking the code a bit.

Jumping in

Question:
Would you agree that WotC's code of conduct RAW can work with Paladins concepts but cannot cover all Paladin concepts or even all tables?

For example: Paladin of Redemption is prohibited from associating with the person they are trying to redeem.

[CharonsHelper]

Yeah, these are all things a DM can reasonably say are dishonourable (except for recieving rewards, which isn't dishonourable at all).

Fixed that for you.

A DM can say anything they want to. That's not a proof of anything.

[AnimeTheCat]

Jumping in

Question:
Would you agree that WotC's code of conduct RAW can work with Paladins concepts but cannot cover all Paladin concepts or even all tables?

For example: Paladin of Redemption is prohibited from associating with the person they are trying to redeem.

Ok, I definitely think I see the point you're trying to make. While the paladin code does not work for every paladin-esque concept, I think they noted this which is why they introduced the alternate concept paladin (freedom, slaughter, tyranny). As for associating with the evil individual they are attempting to redeem, that does seem to be a dysfunction of the rules - slightly. I say slightly because the word associate in the "Associates" text is really rather unambiguous. It follows the text saying that a paladin will adventure with other alignments, but will never knowingly associate with an evil character. That leads me to believe they are using the definition of associate that means connecting and supporting. That leads me to believe that actively working to redeem someone is not the same type of association. Now, I know that's splitting grammatical hairs, but that's the nature of words with multiple definitions. One person will likely read or interpret them differently from the next.

[OldTrees1]

Ok, I definitely think I see the point you're trying to make. While the paladin code does not work for every paladin-esque concept, I think they noted this which is why they introduced the alternate concept paladin (freedom, slaughter, tyranny). As for associating with the evil individual they are attempting to redeem, that does seem to be a dysfunction of the rules - slightly. I say slightly because the word associate in the "Associates" text is really rather unambiguous. It follows the text saying that a paladin will adventure with other alignments, but will never knowingly associate with an evil character. That leads me to believe they are using the definition of associate that means connecting and supporting. That leads me to believe that actively working to redeem someone is not the same type of association. Now, I know that's splitting grammatical hairs, but that's the nature of words with multiple definitions. One person will likely read or interpret them differently from the next.

Yeah. It is really hard to cover the spectrum of Paladins with a tiny number(12-13) of codes of conduct. Especially if using verbiage(associates) that might seem more restrictive to some.

As far as Paladins go, I have only seen 2 problems. That was the first and is the only problem I would blame on the game design. The second problem I see with Paladins is player made and player controlled.

Like so many different character archtypes, players prone to problematic behaviors can see Paladin as an excuse to think about their character rather than think about the group. ErebusVonMori's story (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22240899&postcount=91) contains an example of a player thinking about the group first.

So, Paladin does have these two "issues", but the first is really easy for a DM to solve and the second is really easy for the Player to solve. Paladins rejoice!