Quote Originally Posted by KillItWithFire View Post
Eh, I think you'd be hard pressed to call him anything else. I'm thinking particularly of the episode "Heart of Gold" in which Reynolds decides to help the downtrodden due to their situation alone and at great personal risk. It's an attitude he regularly displays. He'd like to have you think he's a callous thief but his nature gets the better of him when he rushes to oppose oppression despite cost to himself. Remember Train Job, returning the medicine despite the fact that the action came at SERIOUS cost to himself and his crew. I think that's the defining part of good vs. neutral. A good person will perform good acts (helping the defenseless, stamping out evil) even if there is a personal cost while a neutral person would be stopped by it.
Yeah but at the same time, he regularly steals from perfectly innocent people and takes plenty of shady jobs he doesn't need to so he doesn't have to live under any sort of authority. And remember the first episode, where he leaves the guy behind to die so he didn't have to drop any cargo?

He's pretty solidly CN in my book. Neither selfish nor selfless. He has lines he won't cross but still puts himself first.


Unless they aim to further the cause of evil. In the same way a LG Paladin can zealously destroy evil in all its forms, a LE evil Paladin could do the same to good. He could believe it is the right of the strong to oppress the weak as part of his moral view and good would oppose them on that. So in the name of "Evil" he hunts agents of good.
This is just a silly concept. He's doing evil deeds... for the benefit of OTHER evil people, at his own expense? This makes no sense.

He could hold those beliefs, but then he'd simply oppress the weak for his own benefit. He wouldn't go around beating up paladins so that his inferior colleagues (who would just as soon slit his throat and take everything he owns) can beat up peasants without being opposed.

I don't think players who choose Paladin are born Paladins, they live their life until they are called and take their first adventurer level as a paladin. You can in fact, exist as a person without having player class levels. Why shouldn't a blackguard be able to do the same thing?
Because a first level adventurer has no power. A guy who has been an evil **** for 80 years by abusing his apprentices in his smithy isn't more worthy to become a Blackguard because he's been more of a ****. It's the guy that's strong enough to raze a church and slaughter everyone that deserves that position.

OTOH, the guy who has been a saint for 80 years working at an orphanage is worthy of the honor of becoming a paladin, because he's proven his dedication.

Good guys care about dedication and chivalry in their champions. Bad guys care about strength in theirs, and expect them to follow the path of evil not out of trust, but temptation.

To use a real world example, if you're choosing someone to run a charity under you, you choose the guy who works most selflessly, because he's least likely to betray it, which is more important than his efficiency. If you're choosing someone to run a gang under you, you choose the guy who'll get the most useful **** done, not the one who'll kick the most puppies along the way.

Good's goal is to aid the innocent. Evil's goal isn't to hurt the innocent, it's to aid oneself- the innocent are irrelevant.



Lawful != respects human made laws as the only authority

Law and Chaos are defined more by your devotion to a cause or code and need not have anything to do with man-made laws. If a Paladin adventures into an evil country and the law there states that murder is the proper and only way to deal with someone who bumped into you, will he feel obliged to cut down a man who ran into him by accident? No because he has no respect for that law. A chaotic character however would be more likely to change his personal viewpoint on a moment to moment basis. That's not to say that they are weak-willed compared to their lawful cousins, just that they don't try to define what good is so they play it by ear much more often while a lawful character would rather justify his actions with something more than a gut feeling. That's my take anyway.
I'm not sure what your point is here? Are you saying you could have a LE paladin but not a CG or CE one?