Paladins
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If evil doesn't have to show it's evil, then either
- Bring the Detect Evil back [it can be a sort of a hunch device for paladins. Not necessarily something that'd stand in court, for example]
or
- Do not punish paladins for questing with evil people, if they are just adventurers with evil aligment.
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and cease the hes wearing black hes evil, get over the stereotypes
i read once the best description i ever saw about paladins and those they work with
a paladin and an evil fighter were both travelling down a road towards one another
it began to rain and a house was in danger of a mud and rockslide
both saw this from opposite directions
the paladin saw that if he could divert a large rock in the center of the hill the mud and rocks would miss the house
the evil fighter saw that if a large rock in the center of the hill was moved the mud and rocks would miss the house but would probably cause more destruction to the other small houses farther down
both ran up the hill and began to divert the rock, the paladin only saw this as aid to save the house in imminent danger
the evil fighter saw this as a way to find more favor with his god by sending more souls into death by his actions
is the paladin at fault for working with the evil fighter
is the evil fighter becoming good for working with the paladin
no on both counts
the paladin saved the house and surely the family within, yes collateral damage happens, but it wasnt seen as an imminent danger
the evil fighter gains favor with his god because the diverted flow does kill more then was in the one house
its all in how you look at it
the closed view of the paladin
or the opportunistic view of the evil fighter
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the paladin saved the house and surely the family within, yes collateral damage happens, but it wasnt seen as an imminent danger
The Paladin falls and looses the gifts of his god because his actions caused the death of many people.
Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to paladins. There is a reason they need Wisdom to get their spells.
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and cease the hes wearing black hes evil, get over the stereotypes
Never! My character openly discusses the Primary Color Theory of Ethics, wherein, if someone is only wearing black or gray they are almost certainly up to no good. The theory usually works too.
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actually the above situation was a sample of both playing their alignment with cause and effect
the paladin will atone with tithes and prayer for the deaths but not fall
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Never! My character openly discusses the Primary Color Theory of Ethics, wherein, if someone is only wearing black or gray they are almost certainly up to no good. The theory usually works too.
Must bring my paladin out of retirement good old Victor"darkfist"McDark he wears a black robe and pot helm most of the time. :twisted:
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actually the above situation was a sample of both playing their alignment with cause and effect
the paladin will atone with tithes and prayer for the deaths but not fall
You guys gotta understand that an OATH is an OATH. There's no excuse to break this oath no matter how grevious the situation, and if you do, you must face the consequences. Now if the paladin doesn't mind breaking his oath in order to save a couple more people or to catch that one last bad guy, that is still a Good act, it just isn't Lawful, and you can't be a paladin with a Neutral Good alignment.
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the paladin will atone with tithes and prayer for the deaths but not fall
No, for such a big mistake he would certainly fall. His powers would be stripped untill he had atoned, and it would take more than just prayers and money. He would have to perform a deed in service to his deity most likely something that helped the people who survived the mudslide, and relatives of those who died.
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Hinty is correct I believe. What sucks about being a Paladin is that if you unknowingly and unwillingly do something that ends up causing evil or more evil, you still get penalized for it.
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@Swifty:
Hinty is correct I believe. What sucks about being a Paladin is that if you unknowingly and unwillingly do something that ends up causing evil or more evil, you still get penalized for it.
Not really. If a paladin sticks wholeheartedly to his oaths, does his best to perform his divine duty and isn't stupid, but still gets tricked, and he re-acts appropriately to being tricked, then he still will retain his power. Paladins ARE still just mortals and can't possibly know everything that's going on in the world. An honest mistake is an honest mistake.
Now aiding or even accepting help from evil is a starting point to become evil, so that's why it's a no no.
And asking to bring back Detect Evil? That's just dumb. Things are way more interesting now. It's not the evil character's fault your paladin is not being nosey enough, as all paladins should be. The very least a paladin should be doing the first time someone asks to come on a quest with him is ask why that person would like to help.
And DMs are not frowning upon paladins questing with evil people. They're frowning upon paladins questing with ~clearly~ evil people, or even possibly evil people.
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@Swifty:
"Yeah, I'm evil. I totally just saved 12 purely innocent babies from a burning house
What if I am evil cause I murder in cold blood everyone who I know has hurt a child in the past? You guys misunderstand "evil" with "chaotic evil madmen".
Moreover:
@Swifty:I think it's BS how some evil people quest with good people -all- the time, then do evil stuff behind their backs because it's not dangerous.
There is a very simple explanation. 90% of the server population is good or pretending to be good. 10% is openly playing evil. If you wait that 10% to be logged, and at the right level, to quest with you, you will remain lvl 5 for your whole life. Moreover, have you ever heard about "evil mastermind". Being evil does not mean eating children, or going around with a toothpick while saying how much you enjoyed the last child you ate. Again "evil" =/ "chaotic evil".
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Its circumstantial really. A priestess of Lolth, even with 16 intel and 40 points in bluff would not openly work with a paladin even if she knew she could damn well easily fool him into believing she was goodly.
Unless she knew taking this opportunity would lead her to a situation that would allow her to please the spider queen far more than displease her.
A priestess of lolth with no points in bluff might still try to convince the paladin she's good if she believes the gains for her god would outweigh the displeasure to her god. Her high int would allow her to realize that wearing black armor with impaled skulls on it would be a recipe for failure. But her lack of bluff might have her slip up her "true opinion" accidentally. Or accidentally praise the spider queen in excitement.
The point is, everyone has a motive, and everyone has values. Some evil people wouldn't be caught dead working with a paladin whom they think are idiots with misguided principles. While some might find the ends justify the means and make an effort to fool the paladin.
The real bother isn't evil people acting good to fool a paladin.
The real bother is evil people with very obviously evil beliefs, (but incredibly unfavorable stats as far as bluffing or acting is concerned) who bluff like pros and leave no possible hints for the paladins to ever hone in on.
To the point where the paladin player would have to metagame in order to know you're evil, even though you've got like -2 to bluff, 10 int and you work for Asmodeus. -
Let's get back to my original post, because I think some of you completely took it out of context:
Paladins are often lonely and very unpopular characters to play because they are narrowly defined by their own self-proclaimed mission in life.
I did not say that evil can't hang out with paladins. Re-read my post:
On the flip side, if you are an evil git, then you have no business playing around with paladins and being all buddy buddy. Unless you have some Bluff or Persuade skills and an agenda behind what you are doing…
I whole-heartedly support evil intending to bring down a paladin, or assassinate him, or spy…but you better have an agenda and the proper skillsets to do it with. It is completely out of line and out of character to try to destroy or manipulate events in-game without having a character who has the necessary skills to do it. You can do it OOC, sure, because you are the player. You are not the character. Play the character.
If you are a socio-path and have no ability to feel remorse, and you generally think you are doing good when doing evil, then the paladin is going to see that within hours if not less.
…you don't have detect evil anymore, but that doesn't excuse any lack of judgement that your character would have IG...
We took detect evil out because it was just as unfair to the evil plotters as it is now the reverse. I will give paladins the detect evil "hints" if there is absolutely no IC purpose for Dr. Evil and crew to be hanging about chatting about lolcats with Mr. Holiness.
DMs are not going to arbitrarily do anything with paladins or evil hanging together. Of course, we are going to get the story behind it, check the required skill-sets, and then deal with it accordingly.
…as a rule, you do not change your play to fit your alignment, you alignment changes to fit your play...
You made your character, there are basic tenets of responsibilities that go with the alignment you started out with. One of them is having the guts to play the alignment until IC-experiences or some other reasoning changes the character. DM's are not around to constantly change alignments, nor are we able to know everything about a character's intentions. It is up to the player to acknowledge these things, and getting an alignment change for "deciding that my character is going to be good now, or evil now" is not a reason. There has to be some significant relationship, happenstance, or other even that causes the change.
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@Deadlock:
There's the entire EO for a start.
Excuse me, what's EO?
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@Deadlock:
There's the entire EO for a start.
Excuse me, what's EO?
The Eclestian Order. The baddest ass bunch of badasses you ever did see. At least one of them was… :D
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I have had only one instance when a Paladin actualy decided to cooperate with Dredo. Many many other times there was conflict, but then, it's mostly because I play Dredo as a "Necromancer who does not go around animating everything, but he is still a Necrmancer".
Paladins should never work with Evil, only against it. The only exception being if the Paladin was so cunningly tricked that there was no way of knowing. Being tricked should not be a Banite saying he wants to help the city by finding some very important artifact, that all the good factions were also looking for. If the Paladin does join the trip to retrieve said artifact, but in the end tries to trick the Banites and taking the artifact himself, there are two red lights. First, he went with Evil anyway, and second he cheated/lied, which is also against the Paladin code.
As to Detect Evil. I personaly find it as a dead give away of somebody's future intentions. For example there is a "Fire Related" mage in the Mage's Guild who is also secretly dabbling in Infernalism. Although he might be careful not to be detected it would take a single Paladin to Detect Evil and immediately brand a person as "Evil", making a lot of future plotting and questing near impossible with any other neutral or good characters.
I know it's not easy playing a bastion of justice and upholding the Paladin code fully at all times, but if you do manage look at all the awesome class powers you get! Those are not earned only because you pick the class, but also because you can act like one. Same goes for Clerics but they have to follow their specific deitie's rules.
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It seems to me that the problem with detect evil is people treat it from an OOC view. I'd say it would be okay to let a paladin's player know that the said wizard is actually evil, so that he can play his char -suspecting- he was evil.
When you meet a paladin, and he claims his patron has told him that someone else is evil, you believe it without doubt because you know paladins have detect evil.
If it was rather a feeling others would have their doubts as well.I can't see why a follower of ilmater would believe if someone is evil just because a paladin of hoar said so.
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Why wouldn't he? Despite being a follower of another Deity a Paladin is a Paladin.
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I was heading off on a quest once, with a Paladin in the party and a charater who was evil. Enroute, we were debating the issue, not knowing for sure whether the "Evil" character was actually evil, since none of us had any direct information. The "Evil" character was basically proposing that we gave him the benefit of the doubt. The DM spawned the Paladin's Celestial Squire who was able to advise the Paladin that he felt concerns at the company we held, nothing more than that. As such, we dismissed the suspicious character.
This was a good implementation of Detect Evil.
Everyone was well happy, except the Evil guy who couldn't go on the quest with us.
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Why wouldn't he? Despite being a follower of another Deity a Paladin is a Paladin.
A Paladin is known for speaking truth. If a paladin says a bloke is evil, then that bloke will have demonstrated some aspect of evil, or through the use of (DM assisted) Detect Evil, the Paladin can know with confidence. As WX says, it doesn't matter who the Paladin favours as deity.