What's your opinion on Book of Exalted Deeds in Ravenloft?

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Boccaccio Barbarossa
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Post by Boccaccio Barbarossa »

If I may...

I think one of the ways to deal with this, in Ravenloft abyways, is to turn to alternate authorities, not necessarily civil authorities, btu I, as a DM, would encourage to have my players turn to those they felt had a Moral authority. Like, say, a church, or even a specific individual within a given bureaucracy. i know it may feel somewhat chaotic, but then again, the Lawful Good character/paladin honestly believes that foes that surrender may have a chance at reformation... Maybe a priest can turn them around? bring them back? I know you can't have every prisonner reform, but it's a possibility.

Also, an interesting take on the paladin is that, say he's a paladin of Ezra: he believes that the secular authorities lack the moral authority to properly judge the villain... but perhaps, if his crimes can be construed as against the church, or morality of the church, he can arrange to have them tried by ecclisiastical authorities... it really depends on the circumstances, of course. (perhaps a quest spell? That might be an interesting alternative, if the paladin has the right alluies/contacts...)

And, lets we forget: if a foe who has surrendered tries to betray the paladin, I would reason that handing that villain a sword and asking them to defend themselves to the death is not out of the question. Take the drow - if they start using their darkness powers against the paladin at inoportune moments, once the fight is over, I think that paladin has cause to judge the surrender to be false and then fight without the possibility of surrender. Like it was said - the paladin is virtuous but entirely stupid, though he is willing to let things run their course a little longer...

This is all stuff which is largely above and beyond lawful good. And definitely, the definition in the PHB are pretty thin and lackign as concrete examples, especially wityh the added complexity of alignment in Ravenloft. The paladin can't rely on supernatural powers to guess who has the moral authority and he needs to make a judgement call. And sometimes, he will be wrong. And he'll have to deal with that dissapointment... which, of course, makes for great role-playing.
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Post by Isabella »

Green Knight wrote: And the arguments over the specifics of alignment are even more common then the arguments over what exactly the Paladin's Code covers. For example, you say a Paladin has to accept a surrender. Yet in the very description for Lawful Good, it says "Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy...". Can you really not see how people can have disagreements over how to play a Paladin, the Code, alignment, and so on?


Sorry, I believe I was unclear.

What I posted was how I understand the way of the Paladin (as per D&D). It was more of an alternative viewpoint to consider than a blanket statement, because there will never be a "set" or "true" way to play a Paladin. Alignment is not something that can be broken down into catagories and still cover every moral quandry that will come up (indeed, my first instinct when it comes to alignments is to just toss them out the window and let the poor PC do as he chooses, but certain spells and classes make that impossible).
Green Knight wrote: What about the Paladin who's on an extended quest in the Underdark? Turning back isn't an option, and the PC's have to keep moving forward until the task is accomplished, before they can return to the surface. Ok, so a Drow from the band you fought surrendered and he's your prisoner, now. Ok, no problem. Hauling one prisoner around isn't so bad. Then you run into another group, and another Drow surrenders. Now you got two prisoners. Then you run into another group, and three more Drow surrender. Do you see the problem, now?
No one ever said being a Paladin was easy ;)

Paladin's are very, very, special people, and even more so in Ravenloft, for the very reasons you state. And before I wander off into my little world of ramblesville, I'll state again that this is my opinion on the matter. After all, it's always the GMs perogative to change something.

Paladins are few and far between because they have to be the best people they can possibly be.
Let's say that a Paladin's dragging along a chained up band of Dark Elves, all the while hoping that the Elves won't gang up on them or give the party away. Every single other party member is griping, silently fuming, or secretly plotting to kill the Dark Elves in the night (plots which the Paladin is honor bound to foil), and generally making the Paladin's life miserable. The Paladin is probably wishing those Dark Elves had fought to the death right about now.

But when the next Dark Elf drops his sword, falls to his knees, and begs for mercy, the Paladin still doesn't get to run him through, no matter how much he wants to. Because as long as the Paladin knows that he's fighting a free willed creature that can be redeemed, one of those Dark Elves might truly be able to be saved. And killing someone that could have been saved just because it's convienent is definetly an evil act.

My idea of a Paladin is absolutly horrible for trying to have fun while role-playing, and I'll freely admit it. Hence, it's probably best not to play a Paladin by these rules unless the GM is sympathetic and willing to cut the Paladin some slack - otherwise, it's a pain in the neck.

But I can sense this is probably going to get (or has gotten) off topic, so perhaps this line of thought should be moved/discontinued.
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Green Knight wrote:For example, you say a Paladin has to accept a surrender. Yet in the very description for Lawful Good, it says "Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy...". Can you really not see how people can have disagreements over how to play a Paladin, the Code, alignment, and so on?
FWIW, Alhandra's behavior in one of those "ionic character" novellas sort of clarified the quandry of that "fights evil without mercy" statement. She and (I think) Lidda are meeting Krusk for the first time ... who is about to be lynched by a mob of commoners who believe he's one of the orcs who just raided their village. Alhandra intervenes, proves from eyewitnesses and tracks that Krusk had come from the other direction than the raiders, and has the barbarian released. Lidda then asks the paladin why she'd not just Detected Evil on Krusk, instead of bothering to gather tangible evidence... and Alhandra replies that she'd have done exactly the same thing -- seen to it that Krusk wasn't executed for a crime he hadn't committed -- even if the half-orc had been evil.

So "without mercy" takes a back seat to justice, for Alhandra as the iconic D&D paladin. Given that she's the official poster-girl for the paladin class, and for Lawful Good as a whole, I suspect we can trust her conduct in that book (which, like the other iconic-character novellas, was written to help teach newbies about the game) to be the standard WotC expects 3E paladins to live up to.
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Boccaccio Barbarossa
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Post by Boccaccio Barbarossa »

Rotipher wrote:
Green Knight wrote:For example, you say a Paladin has to accept a surrender. Yet in the very description for Lawful Good, it says "Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy...". Can you really not see how people can have disagreements over how to play a Paladin, the Code, alignment, and so on?
FWIW, Alhandra's behavior in one of those "ionic character" novellas sort of clarified the quandry of that "fights evil without mercy" statement. She and (I think) Lidda are meeting Krusk for the first time ... who is about to be lynched by a mob of commoners who believe he's one of the orcs who just raided their village. Alhandra intervenes, proves from eyewitnesses and tracks that Krusk had come from the other direction than the raiders, and has the barbarian released. Lidda then asks the paladin why she'd not just Detected Evil on Krusk, instead of bothering to gather tangible evidence... and Alhandra replies that she'd have done exactly the same thing -- seen to it that Krusk wasn't executed for a crime he hadn't committed -- even if the half-orc had been evil.

So "without mercy" takes a back seat to justice, for Alhandra as the iconic D&D paladin. Given that she's the official poster-girl for the paladin class, and for Lawful Good as a whole, I suspect we can trust her conduct in that book (which, like the other iconic-character novellas, was written to help teach newbies about the game) to be the standard WotC expects 3E paladins to live up to.
personally, I think it just boils down to this: if there are 7 (say) cardinal virtues, then the paladin will, inevitably, hold one or two as slightly more important than the others, even if she champions them all. If that was not the case, every paladin (in my mind) would be both unplayable and exaclty the same as the previous one, which is just boring,. And i think boring is far worse than unplayable. :wink:
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