The Paladin Falling mechanic- "partial fall" variant

[hamishspence]

One 3rd party sourcebook (Quintessenial Paladin 2) has a set of graduations between "really minor violation" and "incredibly gross violation"

With different amounts of "powers lost" depending on how serious the violation is, from -1 to caster level, to loss of all powers except one.

Is this an interesting alternative to the "straight fall"?

It communicates that the paladin is straying off the "path" without massively crippling the character instantly.

Thoughts?

[Steward]

Sounds pretty cool. You could even have RPing opportunities, in which the Paladin can actually feel his power diminishing over time and has the chance to figure out what's going on / what he's doing wrong. That could be a story all on its own.

[hamishspence]

The lowest involved the paladin getting nightmares. More serious ones involved a "stain" appearing on the paladin's aura of good, and as it gets worse, the Lower Planes start sending imps and the like to tempt the paladin.

It was an interesting option.

The sourcebook discussed a lot of things- including the code, its tenets, and how it might vary from order to order, the ramifications of Detect Evil:

(in a world where Evil is supernatural and even serial killers only detect as Neutral unless affiliated with Evil gods or fiends, Smite on Sight is OK, in a world where it is more common that that, generally, it is not)

and so on.

[Riffington]

It's pretty interesting. One thing that would make it even more interesting is if a tricksy evil being found a way to complement a falling paladin's powers so that he never really felt the loss...

[hamishspence]

Going by Tome of Magic, the sample ex-paladin "sort of" feels the loss, but he thinks its just an anomaly, the god testing him, certainly nothing he's done.

it appears it is possible to go all the way to Blackguard and still believe yourself to be an upstanding paladin.

This may be a bit of an exception though.

[Oslecamo]

Had a DM once that improvised an "holyness" bonus on attacks and damage. Good deeds would make the bonus go up, wrong deeds would do it go down. He said it was to give my paladin to have more room to breack the code now and then, but just for minor stuff, like lying to get out of a tight spot, or acepting a deal from a minor evil character to fight a bigger evil.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

A gradual system of rewards and punishments seems like an excellent alternative to the standard falling mechanic.

[Kieran Cage]

Going by Tome of Magic, the sample ex-paladin "sort of" feels the loss, but he thinks its just an anomaly, the god testing him, certainly nothing he's done.

it appears it is possible to go all the way to Blackguard and still believe yourself to be an upstanding paladin.

*Cough*Miko*cough*

Oh come on, SOMEONE had to say it!

It definitely adds more depth to role playing a paladin. I will absolutely be using this in the next campaign I run.

Which of course means that if anyone should choose to play a paladin, they will have a deliberately harder time of it, no matter how straight-and-narrow they attempt to play it.

Awwwww, I'll probably be nice and give them bonus xp or a powerful magic item as compensation.

Yeah, who am I kidding? No I won't.

[hamishspence]

In general, it might help to minimise

"hey, moving me from LG to LN and tking all may powers without warning me is unfair" complaints- because, with this sort of system, the player gets warnings. Lots of warnings.

And little step-by-step penalties rather than one sudden loss of everything.

Or course, some may want to roleplay a slide out of LG even with this- but its a bit less "All-or-nothing".

[AslanCross]

I agree, this sounds pretty good. Involves even more bookkeeping, but I'd say it's a bit more in keeping with a venial sin/mortal sin type of code that I think works well with the paladin.

[mohdri]

I used this book with a previous game and it worked marvelously.

The best thing, IMO, about this book is it allows you to create a custom code for the Paladin, so that the PC and the DM can be on the same page as far as what is good and bad for said Paladin. IMO, that is one of the biggest problems with the core Paladin, which is the abiguity of the "code" from the Player's Handbook. No more abiguity.

[Swordgleam]

It's pretty interesting. One thing that would make it even more interesting is if a tricksy evil being found a way to complement a falling paladin's powers so that he never really felt the loss...

That reminds me of a mechanic in d6 Star Wars where Jedis can get massive bonuses to single rolls by using a Dark Side point.. but they get diminishing returns each time they use one, and eventually, they go over entirely, lose their Jedi powers, and are totally dependent on Dark Side points to achieve anything.

I can see something like that working with a gradual fall mechanic. You start slipping, and get the opportunity to have some of your powers back, better than ever - but only briefly, and only in exchange for a part of your soul.