Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:42 pm
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.
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.