Crowning Paladin of Awesome

[Onmi]

Any moments in any game in which your paladin (or someone else's) goes above and beyond there standard to do something completely Awesome.

Does not count Falling because thats not awesome, thats stupid.

Personally mine was when I played a Paladin attempting Diplomacy to get into the BBEG's city, after they had refused every other party member, he asked politely to open the gates. Or he would have to pray.

The guards laughed and he kneeled down closing his eyes to pray, just as the Sorceror (My cousin) Fireballed the gate and guards down. All my Paladin did was open his eyes, see the scorched gate and sarcastically announce "It's a Miracle"

[Tsotha-lanti]

My 10th-level paladin charged a great red wyrm on his pegasus to hold it off and buy the rest of the party time to ride to the nearby village and start evacuating them.

He got incinerated as soon as the DM got tired of me arguing that the dragon would have to wheel about with its crummy maneuverability before it could breathe fire...

[DMfromTheAbyss]

I was playing a paladin, with a thief a druid and a bard in the party. In the course of events we need some info. Partially on my suggestion we go to the seediest, meanest most likely to be infested with our enemies tavern in the city.

Undergoing taunts and ridicule from the patrons I just smiled and acted as polite as I could. Turning the other cheek as they insulted me, waiting for the thief to get the info so we could leave.

Finally some of the bar thugs and thieves decide that my enduring of their insults was a sign of weakness so decide to act. They pull knives clubs and assorted cutlery. They threaten and gloat. They finally out and out say, "And now we're gonna gut cha! any last words "Paladin".

"Finally!" Sword is drawn in same motion lead thug is bisected. Druids formerly reduced animal companion tiger is leaping over the table. Thugs are somewhat taken aback by sudden presence of eager combat ready adventurers, as several more fall before they can get initiative.

Remaining thugs surrender, information is had and Paladin tells bar patrons that perhaps they should rethink their ways.

Just becouse paladins are not supposed to start fights doesn't mean they can't be prepared and end them with extreme prejudice.

[Heliomance]

We were facing a group of 50 or so 1st level sorcerors, at about level 9. We weren't sure how we were going to win this battle, because yeah, they're 8 levels below us, but 50 magic missiles to the face is going to hurt. So the Paladin gets up front and addresses their leader. He talks, he holds a discussion with the guy. And gradually, it emerges that this is not a very nice man. The Paladin manipulates him into admitting that he thinks of the other sorcerors as cannon fodder.

Eventually, the guy grows tired of the conversation and yells, "FIRE!"

50 magic missiles hit him in the back of the head.

[Occasional Sage]

We were facing a group of 50 or so 1st level sorcerors, at about level 9. We weren't sure how we were going to win this battle, because yeah, they're 8 levels below us, but 50 magic missiles to the face is going to hurt. So the Paladin gets up front and addresses their leader. He talks, he holds a discussion with the guy. And gradually, it emerges that this is not a very nice man. The Paladin manipulates him into admitting that he thinks of the other sorcerors as cannon fodder.

Eventually, the guy grows tired of the conversation and yells, "FIRE!"

50 magic missiles hit him in the back of the head.

That moment is made of win, with a delightful sauce of awesome.

[ReluctantDragon]

So...

Awesomeness in that I feel it was me standing up to the GM...

About 5 years ago I was playing for a GM that was notorious in his inability to have anything planned out, prepared, or written up. Needless to say, this led to long, boring occasions of looking things up, deciding on some item or monster, interspersed with periods of mass confusion when noone really knows what's going on.

So 'The Group' arrives on an island that a town resided on. This town is a large exporter of fish or somesuch and the lack of communication recently led nearby ports to fear the worst. We arrive and find an empty town. Completely empty. Good so far, spooky...etc.

I am playing the paladin (not quite the stick up the rear, but he did preach against temptation and evil. I did not kill the baby orc. Yes, I was put into that situation), and whilst the druid, fighter, and rogue continue to search the town, I decide to have a look around the island itself. Given that our initial yelling, looking and standing around in the middle of town elicited no sign of life, I was not hopeful of finding anything in town.

I wandered for quite a bit, and as the GM describes a large fallen tree across my path, I decide to investigate. At this point, he goes back to describing the situation for the other party members. He comes back to me (after rifling through the Monster Manual and says simply, "You hear buzzing. From the tree." I strive to investigate further. Again, he leaves me to go back to the rest of the party. He comes back to me. I make an uneducated intelligence check to see if these are common insects that I am hearing or something else. Result is that it could be anything. Fine. I peer into the darkness of the hollowed out tree and cast detect evil. Nothing. At that point I say, alright I turn to walk away. Apparently, ignoring it is just what I need to do. There are now Stirges all over the place.

Riiiiight.

So insects that are as big as my forearm make a simple buzzing noise and sneak up on me? Even though they are making a buzzing noise.

K.

So, do they attack me.

Yeah.

Alright I swing away. I drop a few, but he starts going into great detail about how I've now stirred up an entire hive of thousands upon thousands of these little bastards.

*sigh* Really? So we've come upon the home colony of Stirges? Where all Stirges hail from? The motherland, as it were?

So I start running towards the town. I holler at my mates that 'death on stubby wings' is coming. I then turn and face off the now ten thousand strong swarm of Stirges. Seriously. Ten. Thousand. Strong.

Alright. Fine. My compatriots make it to water, where the druid casts water breathing on everyone. Not me. I'm going to make sure they stay alive. I'm sucked dry. Not even a flake of skin left.

Fun times right? I closed my book. Bid everyone adieu, and went home. Didn't play for a while after that, but in the end, everything ended up all good.

Ever since, I tell any GM I play under that if there are Stirges, I'm walking away.

[Onmi]

That GM seemed hopeless, ours just had a thing against Paladins, but we got around that, the LE Necro was allowed in because he was the prisoner being escorted by the Pally and Fighter. I forget the rest cause it was a long time ago.

The funny thing was 'Kneel down and Pray' was code for the rest of the players that 'Pally is shutting his eyes, whatever he couldn't remove with peace? Murder it.' since I could allways claim that my pallys mind was with his God.

I think surviving the Campaign without Falling was something in itself.

[RMS Oceanic]

I read a story about while the other members of his party were drinking at the Tavern, the level 9 Paladin went off to deal with the orc bandit problem the town had. Through careful use of tactics, he whittled down the small army of orcs until their leader, with (I think) a green dragon mount, remained. More use of tactics and Smite Evils later, the dragon is down, but the Paladin is badly wounded. He continues to fight the Orc leader one-on-one until it gets down to the point where the Orc's next hit will kill him, while he'll need a critical hit to kill the orc. So he puts his faith in his dice...

...and rolls a 1.

His party is using some sort of fumble rules, so he has to role again. Another 1.

This requires another roll. A third 1.

The rest of the party are thinking "tough luck, bro", as the DM looks up the fumble entry. He sits for a moment in stunned silence.

"...both the attacker and his intended target die."

[Ravens_cry]

That GM seemed hopeless, ours just had a thing against Paladins, but we got around that, the LE Necro was allowed in because he was the prisoner being escorted by the Pally and Fighter. I forget the rest cause it was a long time ago.

The funny thing was 'Kneel down and Pray' was code for the rest of the players that 'Pally is shutting his eyes, whatever he couldn't remove with peace? Murder it.' since I could allways claim that my pallys mind was with his God.

I think surviving the Campaign without Falling was something in itself.

Personally if I was GM and you tried that, your paladin would Fall. Not immediately and not for the associating, otherwise any prostelizing Paladin would Fall, but keep that that 'blissful ignorance' shtick,and you would Fall. I would send some warnings, first your God appearing before you in a vision while you were 'praying', telling you that ignoring Evil you can personally stop is going to get you hit with the Falling stick. Then I would send a cleric from your faith, warning you of your ways. Then a paladin. Maybe an Aspect of the God would show up. Then. . .FALL.
I don't want to start another 'paladin fall' thread here, I think the paladin concept is awesome, I am just saying, in my view, your character weren't exactly living up to the paladin ideals.

[Khanderas]

Personally if I was GM and you tried that, your paladin would Fall. Not immediately and not for the associating, otherwise any prostelizing Paladin would Fall, but keep that that 'blissful ignorance' shtick,and you would Fall. I would send some warnings, first your God appearing before you in a vision while you were 'praying', telling you that ignoring Evil you can personally stop is going to get you hit with the Falling stick. Then I would send a cleric from your faith, warning you of your ways. Then a paladin. Maybe an Aspect of the God would show up. Then. . .FALL.
I don't want to start another 'paladin fall' thread here, I think the paladin concept is awesome, I am just saying, in my view, your character weren't exactly living up to the paladin ideals.

Doesnt seem like the character was sitting down and ignoring it so the character could himself be ignorant of much of the action his pary did.
The player may know that the rest of the group is up to no good, but Pallys cant fall for out of game knowleadge.

[Ravens_cry]

Then it's metagaming.
The pally just 'happens' to kneel down and pray every time Necro is about to go all murdery. That's why the warnings, he's praying right? Well, Your god would still be aware, at least eventually, and would bring it to the paladins attention. After all, they are talking, right? Maybe it's just my Judeo-Chistian uprbringing but I always thought of prayer as talking to the Guy Upstairs. Though admittedly, unlike the Old Dude, D&D gods tend to be less subtle on the answers.
Ok,Ok, stop I am de-railing, and I know it. if you want to continue this,send me a PM.

[Onmi]

It was justified, every character in that city was chaotic evil, peaceful solutions had failed,and the sorcerer doesn't mind blowing crap up.

It's not like we did it on crap like a shop keeper would refuse us, OBVIOUSLY I had restraint. a few times the party could claim they were protecting me to, because the other party would advance and I would be vulnerable.

the Sorcerer was the hero by the by, every one else was aiding him.

Most of the time I RP the 'Haran Banjou Lawful Good' which works pretty well.

[AslanCross]

It wasn't my character, but one of my players had a paladin in a recently-deceased game. The BBEG's right hand woman, a powerful 11th level warblade/blackguard, had just executed their de facto party leader (a Fighter/Swashbuckler PC who had been the paladin's blooming love interest) in the middle of a dark forest. (The swashbuckler's player had to quit, and she wanted me to kill off her character in a cool way.) The entire party was watching as the warblade and the swashbuckler dueled, with the warblade quickly gaining the upper hand and skewering the swashbuckler.

As she fell and got tossed aside unceremoniously, the paladin charged and used smite and Power Attack all at the same time. He bashed the warblade for a third of her HP. Next turn he landed a critical blow that took off another third of her HP.

The party was Lv 6. Granted the warblade ran away before she was killed, and it was the wizard's scorching ray that took out the rest of her HP, leaving her with 5. Still, it was the paladin's blows of righteous fury that knocked her down when the other melee characters couldn't do a damn thing to her.

[d13]

We were facing a group of 50 or so 1st level sorcerors, at about level 9.

Blast the hell out of them with a freakin' fireball? xD

[Darth Stabber]

Had a character playing paladin of freedom(UA), BBEG is unholy cleric of a forgotten elder god, his dragon (not a true dragon, just some kind of land based critter of dragon type), bursts into the room to cover his escape. The paladin starts a grapple with it. The next question I hear is "what's the penalty to ride checks for an unwilling mount", as he tries guides the frenzied monster into chasing the BBEG. I house ruled it to -25 penalty (-20 for hostility, -5 for ill suited, and he proceeds to roll 2 nat 20s on ride checks in row while succeed in maintaining the grapple against the larger creature, and chased the BBEG down 2 session earlier than he was supposed to, managed to get lucky and keep him contained until the rest of the party shows up and proceed to eat the clerics face. He later took leadership and the dragon became his cohort.

[shimmercat]

This isn't nearly as cool as some of the other posts, but...

Our paladin is a flying-shark-riding, giant-sword-wielding (oh, weapons of sizing...) hairy, HUGE Russian guy. Once, the barbarian, the rogue, and Mr. Paladin broke into a the secret hideout of The Evil Mercenaries, where the cleric (me) and the druid were being held hostage. Mr. Paladin proceeded to crit miss on his first attack, and the DM called that his sword got stuck in the ceiling. So Mr. Paladin decided to use his other attack to punch Evil Mercenary Flunky in the face... and rolled a 20. Then a 20 to confirm. Then a 1 to confirm the triple crit. The flunky was flat dead.

And then there was the incident against the other sharkriders that led to THIS picture (WARNING: a bit bloody).

[woodenbandman]

My friend's Pally killed a fallen planetar just to watch him die while valiantly defending his party members.

the situation was that I was a 12th level druid and he was a chargadin. I know what you're thinking: Why didn't I kill him instead? Well, I wanted to. In fact, I REALLY DESPERATELY wanted to. It was my character's father. But I got strength drained while tanking the umpteenth level wizard's shots, and I had purposefully prepared ****ty spells that day because I was about to transition into Binder because when I was a druid I had 50ish AC and it was ridiculous. I theoretically should have killed that fallen planetar.

I think that that paladin's crowning moment was when we were entering the drow city and we were getting hit with knockout gas. He outlasted everyone with his infinite saves of infinity. He stood his ground, and drew his blades on the drow when they tried to take us away, and they all fainted (even with their masks). He then CARRIED THE PARTY OUT OF THE CHAMBER OF GAS, and found himself standing, defending all of us against no less than 3000 drow, in the underdark. And he fainted. He had rolled a 1 on his last save vs. the gas.

We all laughed so hard. It was the most beautiful thing you ever saw, I swear.

That was pretty much HIS moment. The one moment where the paladin was the greatest. It's so tragic that the paladin class is weak, it really is.

I have a desire to play an undead paladin now, because I'm remembering my undead bard cohort in that game. He's glorious.

[Renegade Paladin]

My 10th-level paladin charged a great red wyrm on his pegasus to hold it off and buy the rest of the party time to ride to the nearby village and start evacuating them.

He got incinerated as soon as the DM got tired of me arguing that the dragon would have to wheel about with its crummy maneuverability before it could breathe fire...

Any dragon worth its scales will have Wingover anyway.

[Onmi]

I remember a different session with a much fairer DM, this wasn't just for the Pally but for the whole party.

While trying to hold off a brutally tough squad of two Black Guard, two Sorcerors and a CE barbarian, My Paladin (since I had the hot dice) acted as a distraction to give the others time to escape, THEN the awesomeness happened.

we had our rangers and rouges set up a tonne of shots and as many fireballs as we could, all while our epic level sorceress held them all in place with a time stop. The Sorceress raised her hand and

"time moves... now!"
She points I get told to roll for dodge since I was also there.

Natural 20.

I'm still not sure to this day if that move was Legal but it was awesome enough for the DM to let it go. Got through ENTIRELY unscathed.

[Sendal]

I remember one event from several years ago, about the only one I can remember when my Paladin was more than a meat shield.

We were tracking a bunch of goblins that had taken townspeople as slaves (To be given as tribute to some hob-goblins I think). They had set up camp in a hastily built fort, complete with shallow ditch and stake wall. There was a very large number of bog standard goblins, party was level 4. There were also some "leader figures", specificaly 4 psionic goblins and a half black dragon.

Its the dead of night. Picture the scene, as the whole camp turns to see the paladin moving silently (with a score of -5) through the ditch and over the stakes. He realises hes been made, puts his hand on his chest and casts Daylight (He was an Aasimar) Our friendly psion, hiding in the bushes outside camp uses his readied action to boost the light source to 300%

everyone looking in the paladin's general direction (The whole camp) was blinded. Paladin makes his fort save to not be stunned and charges blindly into the centre of the camp as the psion carpet bombs, the scout snipes and everyone else generaly charges in. Te enemy leaders managed to recover quickly enough to put up a fight, but the goblin mooks were worse than useless.

[Gerbah]

One of my favorite characters I've played was a Paladin. Though he was a Paladin of Slaughter, thus he was Chaotic Evil. He didn't do a whole lot of running around killing everything he could and then dancing about their corpses, he was rather restrained for CE. That and the party was a band of pirates, so the only killing we did was other vessels' crew.

Anyways, the story happens as such: After a particularly vicious fight, two of the crew start complaining about the low food rations. After a while one of them is getting particularly rowdy, trying to start a mutiny. I wasn't about to let this happen. I march over to the table and slam my full-plated boot onto the side of the bench. While the mutinous dog is falling down, I slam him with my spiked shoulder, killing him.

Afterwards I gave his rations to his comrade.

[Onmi]

that was kickass. I usually only play Paladins, sometimes I multi into a Fighter Or cleric, or monk or crusader or something. But... I just like the entire concept, I mean so long as I'm not limiting the rest of the players, I'm good.

I'm still waiting for the day I can do 'Hell and Heaven' or summon a Tek Armor with a Paladin/Monk...

[Renegade Paladin]

One of my favorite characters I've played was a Paladin. Though he was a Paladin of Slaughter, thus he was Chaotic Evil. He didn't do a whole lot of running around killing everything he could and then dancing about their corpses, he was rather restrained for CE. That and the party was a band of pirates, so the only killing we did was other vessels' crew.

Anyways, the story happens as such: After a particularly vicious fight, two of the crew start complaining about the low food rations. After a while one of them is getting particularly rowdy, trying to start a mutiny. I wasn't about to let this happen. I march over to the table and slam my full-plated boot onto the side of the bench. While the mutinous dog is falling down, I slam him with my spiked shoulder, killing him.

Afterwards I gave his rations to his comrade.

You were wearing plate aboard ship?

[Graymayre]

You were wearing plate aboard ship?

There is an enchancement that can be put on armor that allows it to fall off you with the pull of the strap. Either that's on him or he's a really good swimmer.

[LibraryOgre]

4e. A Minotaur Paladin in the Thunderspire Labyrinth. Our group gets a bit cocky and presses on to meet the "big boss"; an Azer chieftain, two or three lesser azer, and an azer warlock-thingy.

We're getting creamed. Mr. Chargesalot, our Barbarian, gets out ahead of the party, ruining the conga-line of doom we had going, and starts getting slaughtered. Our clerics are banged up, everyone's low on healing and starting to retreat... when one of the party falls unconscious. It will take a little bit to get him out.

So my paladin grabs the azer chieftain and holds him hostage, at knifepoint. The rest of the party hustles in, grabs our fallen comrade, and gets out, while the paladin keeps his hostage held. Just after the party escapes, the azer chieftain gets free, leaving me armed with a dagger, my hammer at my feet, and in a ring of spears.

The party later faced my zombified corpse on a return to the azer stronghold.