What are you playing now?

[Bartimaeus]

Aren't Paladins bound to the *Lawful* Good alignment...at least in 2nd Edition? I'd hate to agree with Volourn, but...

[Keyrock]

Yeah, I can't believe I'm going to agree with Volo also, but I'm not sure how righteous it is for a Paladin to kill a couple of people, unprovoked, without ever witnessing them commit or attempt an act of evil, even if a spell tells you they are indeed evil.

 

I've been playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.  I played the game before, years ago, but it never grabbed me and I wound up losing interest and abandoning after a few hours.  I've done about 10 hours so far, which is an improvement already.  I find it's definitely more interesting to go with a slow weapon (I went with a hammer this time) than a fast weapon (I did daggers the last time I played), since you can't just button mash your way to glory, not as much, anyway.  Since hammers are so slow, you have to pay attention to timing to keep from getting constantly interrupted.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep playing since I should get my copy of AssCreed4: Live Free or AssCreed tomorrow.  I found a copy for Wii U dirt cheap, and I read it's the least AssCreed of all the AssCreeds, plus it's got sea shanties, and sea shanties rock.  I imagine the combat is still insultingly easy, right?

Edited July 27, 2014 by Keyrock

[tajerio]

"Came up positive, Imoen and I killed them (RPing paladins is so much fun), and we took their stuff. "

 

More like Fallen Paladins. I'm sorry, but people who play Paladins like not aren't real paladins. As a DM, I'd have made you lose your standing as a paladin.

 

Well, in P&P it would have been handled differently.  In this encounter in BG1 I literally have two options: I can let two guys with the Evil alignment walk away and do whatever the hell it is they're doing in the Sword Coast unmolested, or I can kill them.  I can't bring them in to the local authorities, because I don't have the option to take them prisoner, and in any case there are no local authorities.  Nor do I have the opportunity to interrogate them in any intelligent way, shape, or form in the dialogue--as in, ask them why they showed up as evil when I did a Detect Evil on them.  So I had to decide which scored higher on the index of Lawful Good--leaving them alone or killing them.  I mulled it over for about thirty seconds and decided the latter.

 

Any reasonable DM would have given me more than the binary option of do nothing/kill them.

Edited July 27, 2014 by tajerio

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm with Volo on this. It feels out of place for me for a Paladin to attack and murder people because a spell was cast on them. Even if the game gives you limited options, murdering people as the first option doesn't seem like something a Paladin would do.

[tajerio]

I'm with Volo on this. It feels out of place for me for a Paladin to attack and murder people because a spell was cast on them. Even if the game gives you limited options, murdering people as the first option doesn't seem like something a Paladin would do.

 

I was very much prepared for the game to inform me that it was an evil act and that I was going to fall because of it.  Letting them prance around seemed a bit too Lawful Stupid, and if I have to play a paladin that way I simply won't and I'll just accept the consequences (or play another class).  Of course nothing happened.

 

Edit: Although, after looking up how Detect Evil works, it's kinda BS that I can Detect Evil on two dudes with a total of 2 HD between them, and it ain't quite the class of divination I thought it was.  Plus, thinking about it the way you all do seems to make more sense within the constraints of the game.  I'll reload to let you live, Xzar and Montaron.

Edited July 28, 2014 by tajerio

[Bartimaeus]

Isn't Lawful Stupid kind of the role you have to play to be a paladin, though? I mean, you can't just go around murdering people because they registered evil with a spell...that is literally against the law, which following is kind of a big part of your alignment. And can't particular items screw with the alignment detected, to boot? You can't ever know what's on a person...there's reason why the spell is not enough to convict. 

Edited July 28, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Volourn]

"Well, in P&P it would have been handled differently.  In this encounter in BG1 I literally have two options: I can let two guys with the Evil alignment walk away and do whatever the hell it is they're doing in the Sword Coast unmolested, or I can kill them.  I can't bring them in to the local authorities, because I don't have the option to take them prisoner, and in any case there are no local authorities.  Nor do I have the opportunity to interrogate them in any intelligent way, shape, or form in the dialogue--as in, ask them why they showed up as evil when I did a Detect Evil on them.  So I had to decide which scored higher on the index of Lawful Good--leaving them alone or killing them.  I mulled it over for about thirty seconds and decided the latter."
 

Give me a break. If that's what you think a Paladin is - killing anything that registers as evil you simply don't know what a paladin is.  If a paladin went around killing anyone that detected as evil they would never be able to live in cities. LMAO I mean, come on. that's not LG behaviour but CN. It's literally crazy to that cold blooded murder is somehow acceptable behaviour. And, just b/c a silly game dodesn't enforce consequences for it doesn't mean you role-played the paladin correctly. Any decent DM would instantly make you a Fallen Paladin. BG2 ilustrates this correctly with the Fallen Paladin questline. they weren't neccessarily cold blooded evil but theyw ere no longer Paladins.

 

Paladins don't use their detect evil ability as an excuse to murder people. That's silly.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Volourn

[tajerio]

"Well, in P&P it would have been handled differently.  In this encounter in BG1 I literally have two options: I can let two guys with the Evil alignment walk away and do whatever the hell it is they're doing in the Sword Coast unmolested, or I can kill them.  I can't bring them in to the local authorities, because I don't have the option to take them prisoner, and in any case there are no local authorities.  Nor do I have the opportunity to interrogate them in any intelligent way, shape, or form in the dialogue--as in, ask them why they showed up as evil when I did a Detect Evil on them.  So I had to decide which scored higher on the index of Lawful Good--leaving them alone or killing them.  I mulled it over for about thirty seconds and decided the latter."

 

Give me a break. If that's what you think a Paladin is - killing anything that registers as evil you simply don't know what a paladin is.  If a paladin went around killing anyone that detected as evil they would never be able to live in cities. LMAO I mean, come on. that's not LG behaviour but CN. It's literally crazy to that cold blooded murder is somehow acceptable behaviour. And, just b/c a silly game dodesn't enforce consequences for it doesn't mean you role-played the paladin correctly. Any decent DM would instantly make you a Fallen Paladin. BG2 ilustrates this correctly with the Fallen Paladin questline. they weren't neccessarily cold blooded evil but theyw ere no longer Paladins.

 

Paladins don't use their detect evil ability as an excuse to murder people. That's silly.

 

Bit of a misrepresentation of what I said.  In a proper P&P game I wouldn't ever have killed those two dudes--I'd have bothered them about why they were detecting as evil and what they were doing just hanging around on the road in the wilderness until they attacked me out of sheer frustration.  I'd only ever consider it if it happened to be a binary choice.  In a city, obviously, there are local legal authorities to whom I would bring any concerns if I started detecting evil mages hanging out on street corners watching the passersby.

 

Also, unless you are the hardest of hardarse DMs (which wouldn't surprise me), why would you define the act as CN but make a paladin fall for it?  I'd want at least a few CN acts or one evil act before I started making people fall.

Edited July 28, 2014 by tajerio

[Hiro Protagonist II]

It's probably a good idea to question NPCs in BG1 before going on a murderous rampage along the country side. Also, if the game as in an NPC tells you someone is acting suspiciously, it's probably telling you to talk to them. Not detect their alignment and kill them. Best to talk with them first. Otherwise, you'll probably be killing a few joinable NPCs as well as stuffing up quite a few quests. And I'd think a Paladin would be questioning NPCs first.

 

Also, some of the best NPCs in the game (ability wise) are evil and have some funny quotes. There's 25 joinable NPCs. I recall Xzar and Montaron were part of my party when I finished BG1 the first time with Imoen, Jaheira and Khalid. There's probably going to be a lot of NPCs in the game you'll walk by and won't even know. There's quite a few hints in the game to tell you who all the NPCs are though. Sometimes the game bangs you over the head while other times it's more subtle.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[tajerio]

It's probably a good idea to question NPCs in BG1 before going on a murderous rampage along the country side. Also, if the game as in an NPC tells you someone is acting suspiciously, it's probably telling you to talk to them. Not detect their alignment and kill them. Best to talk with them first. Otherwise, you'll probably be killing a few joinable NPCs as well as stuffing up quite a few quests. And I'd think a Paladin would be questioning NPCs first.

 

I actually did Detect Evil, then talked, then attacked.  It wasn't quite so psychopathic as that.

 

Edit: I couldn't actually attack them after talking to them, which I thought was a bit stupid, so I reloaded and attacked them straight off since that was the only way the game would let me do it.

Edited July 28, 2014 by tajerio

[Volourn]

"why would you define the act as CN but make a paladin fall for it?  I'd want at least a few CN acts or one evil act before I started making people fall."
 

Because with Paladins there's supposed to be very little grace except in the case of very minor slip ups. ie. If you only tithe 9% instead of 10% you'd get warning. But, mass murdering a couple of travelers b/c they detected as evil is NOT a minor slip up.

 

 

"I actually did Detect Evil, then talked, then attacked.  It wasn't quite so psychopathic as that."

 

Yes, it was. Considering that the two 'evil doers'  tell you straight up that they want to go investigate the mine problems in Naskel. So, in effect, they are helping the good people of the Sword Coast. Certainly not acting like villains. And, certain not worthy of cold blooded murder.

 

 

"I'd have bothered them about why they were detecting as evil and what they were doing just hanging around on the road in the wilderness until they attacked me out of sheer frustration."

 

You really don't get it do you. That is just as bad. Harassment is not a paladin trait.

[Humanoid]

The right thing to do would be to murder paladins, the bloody fascists.

[tajerio]

The right thing to do would be to murder paladins, the bloody fascists.

 

That's kinda my attitude too.    As Volo says, I don't really get paladins, so I'm trying to RP one in BG just to see if I can.  Results thus far are, obviously, mixed.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I actually did Detect Evil, then talked, then attacked.  It wasn't quite so psychopathic as that.

 

Edit: I couldn't actually attack them after talking to them, which I thought was a bit stupid, so I reloaded and attacked them straight off since that was the only way the game would let me do it.

 

You reloaded so you could kill them? By reloading, all the dialogue that happened prior didn't exist and your character just killed them for no reason other than having an evil alignment. As Volourn said, the dialogue from both Xzar and Montaron would be about the Nashkel Mines and they would have asked to join your party.

 

When you have NPC's asking to join your party, that should tell you they are companions, even if they have an evil alignment. Not something to reload and kill them. Also, the game wouldn't let you kill them after you talked to them? Are you playing BG:EE? Because I don't recall something like that happening in the original game, but then I never tried to kill them either when I decided not to take them.

[tajerio]

 

 

I actually did Detect Evil, then talked, then attacked. It wasn't quite so psychopathic as that.

 

Edit: I couldn't actually attack them after talking to them, which I thought was a bit stupid, so I reloaded and attacked them straight off since that was the only way the game would let me do it.

You reloaded so you could kill them? By reloading, all the dialogue that happened prior didn't exist and your character just killed them for no reason other than having an evil alignment. As Volourn said, the dialogue from both Xzar and Montaron would be about the Nashkel Mines and they would have asked to join your party.

 

When you have NPC's asking to join your party, that should tell you they are companions, even if they have an evil alignment. Not something to reload and kill them. Also, the game wouldn't let you kill them after you talked to them? Are you playing BG:EE? Because I don't recall something like that happening in the original game, but then I never tried to kill them either when I decided not to take them.

I don't really care if they're supposed to be companions or not. They're Evil, I'm Lawful Good(ish), so the only way I'm travelling with them is if they're in my custody.

 

And it's not like the dialogue actually tells me anything. All I know from that is that they're pretty clumsily trying to manipulate me with one healing potion and some silly blabbering about debt, and that they want to go to someplace called Nashkel to investigate some metal problem, neither of which I know anything about at all.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Well, another odd thing I found about it is that you reloaded the game to kill them. You had a dialogue with them and then the game wouldn't allow you to kill them. Even after the dialogue, there was no suggestion they were up to anything bad. They wanted to go to Nashkel and offered a healing potion as payment. Instead, you still choose to kill them.

 

So to 'get around the game' you reloaded and then killed them first without the dialogue. That's not roleplaying since your Paladin just killed two people for no reason other than they had an evil alignment. Even the meta-knowledge told you nothing bad they were up to. Reloading a battle is okay because when you reload you go back in and initiate dialogue with the enemy or the enemy attacks you first and your characters know they're bad. Reloading to kill people without the dialogue makes the character as murderers with no justification than 'a spell told me they have an evil alignment'. If you're going to play the game like that to 'get around the game' then you can expect some criticism from some people with your roleplaying aspect of it. I would say there was little roleplaying for your character even with the meta-knowledge. 

[tajerio]

If you're going to play the game like that to 'get around the game' then you can expect some criticism from some people with your roleplaying aspect of it. I would say there was little roleplaying for your character even with the meta-knowledge.

I thought it was actually perfectly fine roleplaying for a character who doesn't tolerate evil, but evidently the silly class doesn't mesh as well with that element of my character as I had originally thought.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

It's not so cut and dry like that. You have to abide by the law as well. Bartimaeus highlighted the lawful part in his post. A judge or policeman may not like to tolerate evil but they can't go around killing people without proof. Suspicion alone isn't enough because that person comes across as a 'bad' or 'evil' person. What your Paladin is doing is not 'lawful'.

 

As Volourn said, there are cities with all alignments. You're going to come across temples with an evil alignment. That doesn't mean the Paladin should go in and kill everyone who worships in that temple. The same with shop keepers with mixed alignments. Some shop keepers will be good, some will be evil. 

Edited July 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[tajerio]

It's not so cut and dry like that. You have to abide by the law as well. Bartimaeus highlighted the lawful part in his post. A judge or policeman may not like to tolerate evil but they can't go around killing people without proof. Suspicion alone isn't enough because that person comes across as a 'bad' or 'evil' person. What your Paladin is doing is not 'lawful'.

This isn't actually contradictory to what I said in any way.

 

The lawfulness is obviously an issue. The problem is that "not tolerating evil," which is a fundamental component of the paladin since the Chanson de Geste, and "behaving in strict adherence to the principles of law" often don't go very well together. But that's going down perhaps another rabbit hole.

[GhostofAnakin]

Finished the Gears of War 3 campaign.  Nothing Earth shattering, but a reminder to BioWare that you can have heartbreaking moments (so to speak) without completely jumping the shark like ME3 did.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This isn't actually contradictory to what I said in any way.

 

The lawfulness is obviously an issue. The problem is that "not tolerating evil," which is a fundamental component of the paladin since the Chanson de Geste, and "behaving in strict adherence to the principles of law" often don't go very well together. But that's going down perhaps another rabbit hole.

 

 

I seem to be agreeing with Volourn on every post. But he is right in that you're playing your character as CN. You're disregarding the law for your own agenda. You're avoiding authority and challenging traditions in order to further your 'not tolerating evil' stand even if it means breaking the law to murder people. This conflicts with what a paladin is. You don't have carte blanche to break the law. While you may not tolerate evil, you have to find another way to rid that evil and not the way you've described. If the game doesn't allow other ways, then it's still not justified to kill them without proof. They could be a good character, carrying an evil item to dispose of and your detect evil spell has picked up the aura around that person giving a false positive of that person. And I'm pretty sure there is someone in BG1 that is something like this. Someone who is carrying something and turns them mad and they can be redeemed.

 

I'd be avoiding historical figures and try and roleplay the alignment more. It's one of the harder classes to play because a lot of the time, you will not be roleplaying a paladin due to your actions in the game. And I've noticed in pnp sessions, players don't always roleplay their paladins properly.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Just to add to my post. This is from the 2nd edition Paladin's Handbook under Lawful Good alingment. Page 31, 32.
 

At the heart of a lawful good alignment is the belief in a system of laws that promotes the welfare of all members of a society, ensures their safety, and guarantees justice. So long as the laws are just and applied fairly to all people, it doesn't matter to the paladin whether they originate from a democracy or a dictator.

A paladin respects the laws of other lawful good cultures and will not seek to impose his own values on their citizens.

However, a paladin will not honor a law that runs contrary to his alignment. A government may believe that unregulated gambling provides a harmless diversion, but a paladin may determine that the policy has resulted in devastating poverty and despair. In the paladin's mind, the government is guilty of a lawless act by promoting an exploitative and destructive enterprise. In response, the paladin may encourage citizens to refrain from gambling, or he may work to change the law.
 
A paladin avoids killing whenever possible. He does not kill a person who is merely suspected of a crime, nor does a paladin necessarily kill someone he perceives to be a threat unless he has tangible evidence or certain knowledge of evildoing. He never kills for treasure or personal gain. A paladin may kill animals for food. He will kill a monster that endangers humans, even if the monster is motivated by instinct, not evil.

 
Evil Characters. Page 37
 

A paladin finds it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid contact with evil NPCs. They're everywhere: walking down a street, dining at an inn, shopping at a bazaar. A paladin's ethos doesn't compel him to attack or even confront all evil NPCs

 

So this is what I was saying about proof before killing someone. The evil alignment of someone isn't enough to kill that person. I understand your paladin doesn't tolerate evil, but it's not enough to get rid of all evil people whenever he comes across them, be it a person travelling on a road, a store keeper, or anyone else. He has to work within the law.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Humanoid]

Okay, so then detect evil, then follow said people evil around (some ranks in stealth will help here). The moment they do something obviously evil like jaywalking, run them through.

[Keyrock]

I played me a bit of FlatOut 2.  Hot dang dem Bugbear folks know how to make a smash em up racing game.  It's so ridiculously fun.

[Labadal]

Divinity: Original Sin

Exploring the Black Cove. Finally got a good bow for Scarlett and some nice gear for the others.

 

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

Completed the events at Balmamusa. I want Matsuno to be in charge of another tactics game some day. (I don't care for that Kickstarter game he has some involvement in.)

Edited July 28, 2014 by Labadal