Paladins and Alignment

[Cerk Evermoore]

What's folks opinion on paladins and their alignment? I feel after a certain extent, while warlocks are expected to always be evil. It seems paladins who are usually lawful good end up doing a lot of evil things. Such as torturing people, stealing and lying and killing fellow men over petty slights. At what point, does a paladin stop being a paladin and becomes some guy who really likes the class mechanics and uses it to play sort of as a neutral or neutral good fighter?

I am not complaining, I just feel it's kinda immersion breaking when a noble knight is like, "I finally got you now!" *Begins to break fingers one by one while laughing.* How they have an oath to kill all evil and it kinda ends there, they are perfectly fine with lying cheating and stealing alongside killing folks that give them lip.

Some paladins on Arelith do an amazing job and you can tell they are the real deal, but some paladins you wouldn't even know they are supposed to follow a lawful good doctrine, I feel to prevent this from becoming another FoTm pvp class. We should take a look at paladins and their alignment and have a discussion about what a paladin should and shouldn't be.

On the flipside the same applies to assassins and warlocks and Blackguards.

[Nitro]

There shouldn't be any need for a discussion. Paladins are the one class that have the strictest restrictions on their alignment and it should be represented in game. If a paladin is running around breaking fingers or otherwise torturing folk for information, or committing other evil acts in the name of good they should absolutely be reported to the DM's.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Yeah, but a lot of different people have different ideas on what paladins mean, some folks say a paladin from one kingdom can go into the other kingdom and slaughter everyone in a village and it would still be considered righteous because they are enacting the will of their king.

I am willing to even accept that explanation from a certain perspective. I actually made this thread to discuss with the playerbase on their opinions on the matter. I feel I wouldn't feel qualified to discern if something is reportable or not reportable based on my own opinion on what I think the class should be without first consulting the community.

[monkeywithstick]

I think now we have access to haks we should just remove the alignment restriction and tweak the mechanics of smite, never made any sense to me that only LG get crusading holy warriors.

I am fully aware this won't happen.

[JubJub]

I think it just been lately there has been more of a push by paladins saying one can do anything as long as they justify it. Paladins powers are divine so they at least need to be following the dogma of their god. If a paladin kills 100 people justifying it that they were evil and at least one turned out to be innocent there needs to be consequences for ones actions or if you torture someone to get info and it turns out the guy was really an innocent fisherman, I don't think oops I made a mistake would suffice. If you see a paladin doing something odd let the dms look at it.

[Dirac]

Bottom line is that I feel more comfortable in the Underdark. Like I have a higher likely hood of getting killed by a LG Dwarven Paladin for "running in the Halls of Brogdenstein" than I do a CE Drow.

I can't remember who said this but i'll say it again. It's good to be a socially acceptable Batman.

[flower]

They would slaughter village, if it was an evil cult worshippers. Not for a whim of a king, paladins are god's servants not kings.

In past DM team mentioned paladin can possible beat captive to get information needed to save others.

If you saw someone as paladin to steal and be thief then you should report it, however for example taking someone(s weapon cannot be called theft (if you get disarmed, both rp and in pvp).

But paladin should not suffer insults it is not mandatory thing to do because you are LG. One LG can ignore it another will persecute you for it, and especially that guy giving the lip acts on behalf of known villain. Do not forget high charisma can come with high ego. The person can believe that she is the one with truth and act onto it.


But i have met once (!) a character with paladin dip, who lied about our characters, was making up plots to get us killed / exiled and in conversation argument of that guy was "I say it, it must be truth i am a paladin, they cannot lie!" but it was a single person in 8 years (and most likely it appeared like the player was a child even).

[sad_zav]

paladins have been a hot topic lately, especially in a few discord channels that i am in. i think one of the reasons for this is that , for some reason, people have developed this idea that attacking someone is evil (especially when it's their character).

these are holy warriors. to be lawful you only need a strict code, and to be willing to sacrifice personal liberties and even inconvenience yourself to stick to that code.

people have been making alignment in general way more complicated than it needs to be. i think this is also happening for a few reasons. one, i think people try to twist certain alignments in order to justify their character concept. normally, it's people trying to say their characters are good when they routinely do bad things. i NEVER see the reverse occurring (someone saying their character is evil when they routinely do good things). killing slaves (especially when they're going to be rez'd and killed again) is evil. stealing for personal gain is evil. murder for pleasure is evil.

unlike real life, FR has actual manifestations of concepts like justice, truth, good, evil, etc. that a paladin thinks "my god grants me his blessings still, so i cannot be wrong" makes total sense. what better justification for one's actions than divine approval?

[Huschpfusch]

Maybe it is different in Enligsh version of the game, but in my language setting Lawful Good description mentiones also explicitly "compassion". Quite a number of knightly type characters I've met so far had this virtue seriously lacking being just divinely brainwashed brutes... yrch.

[flower]

Maybe it is different in Enligsh version of the game, but in my language setting Lawful Good description mentiones also explicitly "compassion". Quite a number of knightly type characters I've met so far had this virtue seriously lacking being just divinely brainwashed brutes... yrch.

None of the paladins in the few novels i have read or games i played were ones with compassion….most of them were zealots who would try to kill your party companion just because of race or origin. I would say CG is more aligment for compassion. LG puts code/law above compassion and mercy imho.

[sad_zav]

from the nwn wiki

"fight evil relentlessly"
"fight evil without mercy"
"hates to see guilty go unpunished"
"combining justice AND compassion"
"alignment title is crusader"

let's not cherry-pick

[Cerk Evermoore]

paladins have been a hot topic lately, especially in a few discord channels that i am in. i think one of the reasons for this is that , for some reason, people have developed this idea that attacking someone is evil (especially when it's their character).

these are holy warriors. to be lawful you only need a strict code, and to be willing to sacrifice personal liberties and even inconvenience yourself to stick to that code.

people have been making alignment in general way more complicated than it needs to be. i think this is also happening for a few reasons. one, i think people try to twist certain alignments in order to justify their character concept. normally, it's people trying to say their characters are good when they routinely do bad things. i NEVER see the reverse occurring (someone saying their character is evil when they routinely do good things). killing slaves (especially when they're going to be rez'd and killed again) is evil. stealing for personal gain is evil. murder for pleasure is evil.

unlike real life, FR has actual manifestations of concepts like justice, truth, good, evil, etc. that a paladin thinks "my god grants me his blessings still, so i cannot be wrong" makes total sense. what better justification for one's actions than divine approval?

I don't mind them killing goblins and smiting evil, my problem mostly is in the fact their personal lives and their conduct does not match that of a paladin and most don't even seem to have any personal code or law of ethics besides they do what they like.

[sad_zav]

it's possible that those are bad paladins

it's also possible that there are things going on behind the scenes that you're not aware of.

LG also manifests differently depending on the deity the paladin follows. Arvoreen, for example, is totally okay with stealing from the enemy.

[Sockss]

By far the most common problem of Arelith's paladins is not "doing evil things" it's not doing good things (which can be pretty similar).

I've never seen a Paladin jump over the edge with torture, but I see paladins every day arguing the ethics and morality of killing warlocks, pale masters and animators/fiend summoners.

That really comes from the lack of awareness of the setting and confusing being kind and accepting with being good.

Or because of pressure in the general populace about what being 'good' actually entails.

Paladin would be the only class I'd argue in favour of being request token locked.

[flower]

It has to do a lot with general oppinion of public on arelith. When paladin opposes evil person many often jump up in the defense calling paladin being committing evil act or when do not stand up they go on campaign against him behind scene, smearing the guy and doing all They can to get him unwelcome all over island.


It is hard to appease public, when my elven one gave chance to villains to redeem he got hatred talks and when other paladin pursuits villains relentlessly, he gets hatred talks too

[sad_zav]

and it's a unique challenge of paladin RP to adhere to their code, regardless.

[three wolf moon]

By far the most common problem of Arelith's paladins is not "doing evil things" it's not doing good things (which can be pretty similar).

I've never seen a Paladin jump over the edge with torture, but I see paladins every day arguing the ethics and morality of killing warlocks, pale masters and animators/fiend summoners.

That really comes from the lack of awareness of the setting and confusing being kind and accepting with being good.

Or because of pressure in the general populace about what being 'good' actually entails.

Paladin would be the only class I'd argue in favour of being request token locked.

Gotta agree with Sockss here. I see way more paladins being permissive of evil than I do paladins committing evil themselves.

[Echohawk]

If you see someone behaving in a way that doesn't align, you report it to the active DMs in the forum.



And no, paladins aren't the only restrictions out there.
Monks gotta be lawful,
Barbarians gotta be anything but lawful,
Druids must be some degree of neutral,
and I am really bad at poems.

If you see it, report it, let the DMs investigate.

[Burt Macklin, FBI]

By far the most common problem of Arelith's paladins is not "doing evil things" it's not doing good things (which can be pretty similar).

I've never seen a Paladin jump over the edge with torture, but I see paladins every day arguing the ethics and morality of killing warlocks, pale masters and animators/fiend summoners.

That really comes from the lack of awareness of the setting and confusing being kind and accepting with being good.

Or because of pressure in the general populace about what being 'good' actually entails.

Paladin would be the only class I'd argue in favour of being request token locked.

Gotta agree with Sockss here. I see way more paladins being permissive of evil than I do paladins committing evil themselves.

I couldn't agree more, here. I would be 100% behind a movement to token lock paladin.

[Tarkus the dog]

I think alignment should be removed from the game.

[The GrumpyCat]

If you see someone behaving in a way that doesn't align, you report it to the active DMs in the forum.



And no, paladins aren't the only restrictions out there.
Monks gotta be lawful,
Barbarians gotta be anything but lawful,
Druids must be some degree of neutral,
and I am really bad at poems.

If you see it, report it, let the DMs investigate.

This basically!

(Though to be fair, Paladins are the MOST restricted of the classes, because all those others are only confined in one direction, not on two.)

At any rate, yeah - if you see actions from a paladin that are way out of line, let us know and we'll take a gander. But know that at the same time, this isn't something we jump on too hotly. There will be chance for explenations, warning, second warnings and so on first. At the end of the day whilst alignment is important, I'd rather see interesting, well written, good storied characters than robotic equivilents of the same character over and over again.

Also - this is the sort of thread that can get out of hand very quickly. For some reason the issue of Paladins and Alignment is something people get really, really, really worked up about. So everyone, be chil, be tolerant and have fun!

[-XXX-]

I'm not sure how viable any token restriction of a base class is. I'd assume not very much.


As for paladins... personally, I have no issues with how they are being portrayed. My biggest concern regarding them is how they are treated by society, because by definition they are religious fanatics and criminals (vigilantism is a crime - there's a reason why the Batman wears a mask).
They shouldn't be welcome and highly regarded by the common folk or local authorities. IMHO paladins should be given the Banite treatment as far as the more civilized parts of the island are concerned.

[Freyason]

Bottom line is that I feel more comfortable in the Underdark. Like I have a higher likely hood of getting killed by a LG Dwarven Paladin for "running in the Halls of Brogdenstein" than I do a CE Drow.

NAE RUNNING!

This seems highly unlikely sir. Source: I'm about 50% of Brog paladin population.

[Sockss]

Criminal status depends on the environment and religious fanaticism is a very different thing in the setting, considering Gods are real and good/evil are tangible forces, drawing parallels between the RL disdain for it doesn't work.

I'd agree in the sense that the majority of PC's are very accepting of a necromancer that doesn't cause a ruckus, but causes a decay of the world and digs up people's grandmother's, but aren't accepting of a Paladin who would kill a necromancer. (Because that's not nice). But I think the most civilised NPC's (which far outnumber PC's) would be the reverse. At least in Cordor.

So the Bane treatment doesn't make much sense to me.

[sad_zav]

paladins can cause problems for settlements, especially when they deem the leadership to be morally bankrupt; however, you can generally trust them to have the best interest of the people in mind. they're good, after all. fair and just leaders have little to fear from them.

banites are a much greater threat to a society, by contrast. they don't have the interest of citizens in mind at all