Paladins
-
I just want to put this out there. If you are going to play a paladin, you need to understand what a paladin is. Some of you multi-classed paladins cannot use your multi-class as an excuse to deviate from the dogma of your deity. Those paladin levels obligate you just as much as a pure paladin!
I don't mean to belittle anyone, that is not my intention, but I have been very dissatisfied with what I've seen in the paladins on the server over the last month, as well as those evil aligned characters who like to be "good" when it's convenient around those paladins.
Hanging out with evil because they helped you kill an undead monster or NPC is not going to cut it, dear paladins. I understand that you don't have detect evil anymore, but that doesn't excuse any lack of judgement that your character would have IG for those who don't meet your dogma's beliefs. Paladins are often lonely and very unpopular characters to play because they are narrowly defined by their own self-proclaimed mission in life.
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, stop being schizophrenic in your alignment. Not only is it completely unfair to RP someone you are not without those mentioned skills, but it smacks of lame.
Let's make sure the RP matches the level of alignment and agenda each of your characters have. That makes things so much more fun. It's cool to RP with each other as good and evil without going to immediate blows all the time, so have fun with that, but let's not pretend we're on the set of some Disney channel sing-along show. K? Thanks.
Play your alignment. Play your stats. Play your agenda. Roll with the punches, roll with the gold. Have fun.
And all the people said, Amen.
-
To be fair Pandy… as a rule, you do not change your play to fit your alignment, you alignment changes to fit your play.
If they do not fit the alignment on the sheet, then shift it towards the true alignment? I realise that DM's can't watch 24/7 but...
-
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, stop being schizophrenic in your alignment. Not only is it completely unfair to RP someone you are not without those mentioned skills, but it smacks of lame.
An unscrupulous greedy evil characters isnt going to turn down the chance to accumulate gold just because the person that wants to play meatshield likes to talk about Torm. The paladin is the one with a code here, if he cant tell the man in black with a skull helm is a bit shady then its him thats going to fall in grace why should I care?
Id be more likely to turn down work with paladins involved if I got the impression (like I should) that they are intuitive about those that are evil and can sniff it out.
-
That's true. Something tells me though that people will start yelling at the DM's once they realize they've lost all their paladin powers. >>
-
We do not just strip away paladin powers from players for traveling with evil characters. We are more likely to hint or help the player discover they are traveling with evil, first. The exception to this is if it's so blatantly obvious that their companions are evil that you'd have to be completely out of it to not notice. i.e. your party buddy murders babies in front of you and you're cool with it.
-
@Notsoslimshady:
An unscrupulous greedy evil characters isnt going to turn down the chance to accumulate gold just because the person that wants to play meatshield likes to talk about Torm. The paladin is the one with a code here, if he cant tell the man in black with a skull helm is a bit shady then its him thats going to fall in grace why should I care?
Id be more likely to turn down work with paladins involved if I got the impression (like I should) that they are intuitive about those that are evil and can sniff it out.
I disagree with this entirely these days, no offence (seeing as I used to go by that myself). The alignment that "gets along" with people and does the job for the money and walks on is Neutral. An evil character is much more than simply immoral in my book, but actually opposed to good - as much as a lawful character is opposed to chaos.
Evil's not about just having a laugh at someone else's expense or robbing a bank - that's Neutral's domain - it's about actually seeking the downfall of the forces of good! Granted you get both good guys and bad guys who are more willing to talk and get along with others, but a CE character should exhude that alignment and positively repulse the paladin with it. None of the alignments involve hiding your true nature without points in social skills.
-
I have to disagree with all of you except Hinty TBH. Play the character, not the alignment. Evil characters don't have to not care, they don't have to hate good, it depends entirely on their induvidual personality.
-
I have in the past had GREAT fun playing evil chars who HATE Evil and work for the cause of Good.
They just are a little… creative, in their methodology.
Those of you who have seen Serenity have seen an example of such a character. (granted it turned out he was working for the bad guys, but he THOUGHT he was working for the cause of good.)
-
I hope when DMs do see Paladins and Evils being buddy buddy they inquire some before assuming they're together just for convenience.
Some people have gone to great effort to make a show of being happynice while others have been careful to keep OOC knowledge out of their reactions.
-
All good points. However, evil does have to be careful when traveling with paladins…I don't think DM's want to see an evil black armour wearing guy with red eyes who really is evil, or someone who openly wears a worshiping necklace of say..bane around their neck try to join or go with known palidans and not indicate anything IC that would tell that they're evil anyways.
Roleplay your character yes, but 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. I don't think it's fair for really evil characters to "pretend" to be good, less they make a bluff check or some other RP attempt at it. I don't see why we can't have detect evil back. Sure, paladins can detect if someone is evil, but without proof of their evil actions they can't really do much less they break the lawful part of their alignment and get charged with murder or assault or something. The most they could do in this current time is..badmouth them or slander them, which people do now anyways...
Why was detect evil removed in the first place? Couldn't I use other IG means to find out if someone is evil? I.E, use a sword that deals divine damage against evil, challange someone to spar, then notice the divine light when you hit them so therefor that person is evil? I mean..WYSIWYG right?
Anyways, for something more related to the topic..isn't there a section of "how to play a paladin" somewhere on this forum?
-
@Swifty:
Why was detect evil removed in the first place?
Because it was/is used as a substitute to a brain.
-
@Deadlock:
@Swifty:
Why was detect evil removed in the first place?
Because it was/is used as a substitute to a brain.
Fail Paladins is fail.
-
Why?
Evil people are not going to go around openly displaying their evilness to people who will opose them. Thats just being stupid.
Its like a mass murderer walking around town sharpening daggers and talking about his past murders while stealing purses from old grannies.
Good should not work with open evil. The very idea should repulse them.
Evil people on the other hand are evil largely BECAUSE they have no morals. They don't care who they work with if it serves them. that is the whole point behind their alignment.
-
This is true hinty. There is nothing wrong with evil cleverly disguising themselves to work with paladins because the paladins can't detect evil..oh..wait…
I guess what I'm saying is that if evil people team up with good people/paladins, they shouldn't be saying or acting good unless they role some bluff checks. They can act neutral without having too many issues, but...I think it's lame if an evil alignment person joins a good group for money and says "Yay, let's save the person!" the entire time they're questing.
-
@Deadlock:
@Swifty:
Why was detect evil removed in the first place?
Because it was/is used as a substitute to a brain.
Bah, there were ways around it. I used to have so much fun getting my evil cleric to work with paladins when they had DE. He was pretending to be a good guy and to do that he needed paladin friends. There was a great deal of challenge and fun in doing that. These days its just too easy :(
-
@Swifty:
I guess what I'm saying is that if evil people team up with good people/paladins, they shouldn't be saying or acting good unless they role some bluff checks. They can act neutral without having too many issues, but…I think it's lame if an evil alignment person joins a good group for money and says "Yay, let's save the person!" the entire time they're questing.
Plenty of evil guys might think of themselves as heroes and save people. There's the entire EO for a start.
-
I know that, but regardless if they think they're doing the right thing, it's still considered an evil act in the NWN universe. Heck, evil people can think they're saving lives by offering a cure to a future plauge to some god. What I don't like/want to see are evil people who go out and save orphans from a burning building that other good people in the party are trying to do just so he can get paid for it in the end.
"Yeah, I'm evil. I totally just saved 12 purely innocent babies from a burning house…but I only did it cause I was going to get gold."<-that shouldn't be able to fly. =/
That's like saying...
"I'm a good guy...I totally just murdered 5 innocent people, in their sleep...but I did it because it keeps that evil guy from possibly maybe turning them into zombies later."
Sure they think they're doing the right thing, but...
It just doesn't make sense. -
@Swifty:
I know that, but regardless if they think they're doing the right thing, it's still considered an evil act in the NWN universe. Heck, evil people can think they're saving lives by offering a cure to a future plauge to some god. What I don't like/want to see are evil people who go out and save orphans from a burning building that other good people in the party are trying to do just so he can get paid for it in the end.
"Yeah, I'm evil. I totally just saved 12 purely innocent babies from a burning house…but I only did it cause I was going to get gold."<-that shouldn't be able to fly. =/
That's like saying...
"I'm a good guy...I totally just murdered 5 innocent people, in their sleep...but I did it because it keeps that evil guy from possibly maybe turning them into zombies later."
Sure they think they're doing the right thing, but...
It just doesn't make sense.No that is two very diferent things.
Some acts are just plain evil. Some are just plain good. But saving someones life IS NOT a good act.
Saving someones life without expectation of a reward, or at great personal risk to yourself is good.
Saving someones life in expectation of a reward IS NOT a good act. I wouldn't go so far as to call it evil (unless you set the fire so that you could extort money from the relatives of the people you "saved") but it is most certainly not good.
-
It isn't neccesarily an evil act either, it's more of a neutral act. Letting that person die when you full well know you can save them is more of an evil act. What I'm trying to say is, unless there's some neutrality in there, good and evil alignments should never do something that is so blatently the opposite of their actual alignment just so they can "fit in" with the party.
If an evil guy that isn't partly neutral teams up with someone whom he knows is a paladin, goes with the paladin to save innocent lives, just to fullfill some goal of his weither it's to earn money or something should call for alignment shifts if you do it a decent ammount of times.
I found something about Paladins..might help.
/topic/143 -
@Swifty:
Roleplay your character yes, but 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. I don't think it's fair for really evil characters to "pretend" to be good, less they make a bluff check or some other RP attempt at it.
I think it might even make sense for an evil character to actually prefer to quest with good people, at least then he can be sure none of them will stab him in the back for extra gold.
Paladins and only paladins have a requirement not to work with evil characters. Other followers of good or evil gods might prefer not to associate with certain people but that is at their descretion.
There is no amoral characters code giving rules on behaviour for evil characters and nor is there a requirement for any character without points in bluff to immediately reel off every crime they have committed to everyone they decide to party with. As long as my character isnt lying or trying to conceal something then there is no need for bluff at all. If hes acting as a spy in a goodly organisation its a powerful aid when hes constantly having to explain himself (and lie) to his superiors but if hes just turning up for a sending to kill goblins why would he need to say anything about his outlook and any crimes hes committed.