Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Darvi]

Pallies also fall when you trip them. Or if you stab their horse. Or if you pull that lever that activates the trapdoor beneath them.

How the hell are they even playable?

[Neonivek]

Pallies also fall when you trip them. Or if you stab their horse. Or if you pull that lever that activates the trapdoor beneath them.

How the hell are they even playable?

It depends on the party (A party of people who are all Lawful Good who don't use stealth, Bluff, or devious skill as well as not having any vices work)... but some versions of dungeons and dragons differ in how strict the rules on Paladins actually are.

At their worst they are practically a NPC class. At their best they are just a class based on being Lawful Good.

A paladin doesn't favor killing to lying, he just doesn't like to lie

Depends strongly on the version. Some outright forbid a Paladin from breaking alignment in any situation. As in they absolutely cannot lie. Often they HAVE to also tithe their gold.

They cannot drink, they cannot let evil go unpunished, they must always defend the weak, uphold the law, cannot let their companions do wrong either.

[Lectorog]

This was 4th Edition, so the class was a bit overpowered. It didn't help that the guy also made up his stats. +8 to all rolls and 21 AC at level 6 didn't seem that abnormal to our DM.

[andrea]

I refuse to acknowledge the paladin described by lectorog as lawful good. unarmed children hiding for fear and unarmed enemies begging for mercy, shouldn't be killed.

however, I must say my only knowledge of such alignments come from a D&D based comic, rather than D&D rules directly.

[Neonivek]

I refuse to acknowledge the paladin described by lectorog as lawful good. unarmed children hiding for fear and unarmed enemies begging for mercy, shouldn't be killed.

however, I must say my only knowledge of such alignments come from a D&D based comic, rather than D&D rules directly.

It is odd but it is just how Dungeons and dragons alignment works. Evil is evil so LETS KILL EM! I havn't seen much in the books ever contradict this. It seems to be accepted that within dungeons and dragons that you are allowed to be genocidal so long as you are genociding EVIL! even if that evil doesn't have to be evil.

Though Accepting surrender is a Lawful action (not within the good-evil alignments).

[Lectorog]

I refuse to acknowledge the paladin described by lectorog as lawful good. unarmed children hiding for fear and unarmed enemies begging for mercy, shouldn't be killed.

He killed the children on the grounds of them being "ambush kobolds", waiting to stab the party members in the backs. He was just looking out for his comrades.
As for the unarmed enemies, they would undoubtedly take up arms and kill people for evil in the future, so he was stopping that before it happened.

[Bauglir]

There are very good reasons that I stay the fuck away from D&D-style alignments whenever possible. This thread seems to be one one of them. Rule number one of any functional system should be, "No telling another player what alignment best describes a given action." And rule number two should be, "Seriously, let a player figure out how a given action fits into their character's moral code." Even for classes with a code of conduct, I've found it's a good idea to let players make modifications to suit the character (while maintaining similar levels of stringency).

[Heron TSG]

Funny thing about that, is that there are other ways to stop a goblin from becoming evil.

Mark of Justice is a great example from 3.5, but it's not the only one.

[kaijyuu]

After playing some very, very freeform tabletop games the past 2 years or so, I sorta wish my friends actually stuck to some sort of alignment. Yeah yeah, they're restrictive, but that's the point; without restrictions, you fall into habit. My friends always play chaotically evil characters, who's first inclination is to burn things. This is not intentional; we make varied personalities, but invariably fire is convenient It's gotten to the point where I tried to make an extremely good character, and the only way I could keep him from being brutally murdered by everyone else is by making him dumb and manipulable.

Blah blah, there's some value in alignments, if just to keep players from doing the same thing all the time.

[andrea]

I refuse to acknowledge the paladin described by lectorog as lawful good. unarmed children hiding for fear and unarmed enemies begging for mercy, shouldn't be killed.

He killed the children on the grounds of them being "ambush kobolds", waiting to stab the party members in the backs. He was just looking out for his comrades.
As for the unarmed enemies, they would undoubtedly take up arms and kill people for evil in the future, so he was stopping that before it happened.

the second part *may* make sense, if you have no way to take prisoners and can't do anything to keep them from murdering other people in the future.
but the first, to me, looks totally implausible. If he has to invent such laughable excuses, there must be something wrong in what he does...

[Neonivek]

Funny thing about that, is that there are other ways to stop a goblin from becoming evil.

Mark of Justice is a great example from 3.5, but it's not the only one.

Alignment isn't Karma.

Except when it is I guess.

[Lectorog]

Funny thing about that, is that there are other ways to stop a goblin from becoming evil.

Mark of Justice is a great example from 3.5, but it's not the only one.

4th Edition: The only good goblin is a dead goblin.
4th Edition encourages excessively heroic characters in this fashion. If you're not playing to the full extent of your alignment, you're doing it wrong.

the second part *may* make sense, if you have no way to take prisoners and can't do anything to keep them from murdering other people in the future.
but the first, to me, looks totally implausible. If he has to invent such laughable excuses, there must be something wrong in what he does...

It turned out that the blanket they were hiding under was a magical (+2) cloak. The party sort of ignored the killing and took the cloak.

[Cthulhu]

I mostly ignore alignment, and when I don't I treat the good/evil axis as selfless/selfish.  A good character is defined by the willingness to hinder himself for the sake of others.  An evil character is defined by the willingness to hinder others for his own convenience.

So a guy who goes out of his way to save a bystander in danger, letting the bad guy get a lead, would be good.  A guy who'd ignore the bystander is neutral.  A guy who'd throw a firebomb into a crowd of innocent bystanders to kill the bad guy is evil.  A guy who'd throw a firebomb into a crowd of innocent bystanders for no reason is probably played by That Guy.

Regardless of how I do it, in any situation a character's alignment is defined by his actions, not the other way around.

I'm not sure I could actually bring myself to play D&D anymore.  I'm getting accustomed to better games.

[kaenneth]

How about when naturally good creatures accidentally do evil?

I assume Metallic dragons are still 'Good', while Color dragons still evil?

The Plutonium Dragon my players encounters ended up killing two of them, by giving them some nice treasures.

The items weren't 'Cursed', but Cure Disease spells worked to treat the symptoms, and the 'treasures' (including a couple Rods of endless light, and an exceptionally heavy headed mace, and an 'magical' explosive device) ended up being dropped off back at Plumb Mountain, where the dragon had his lair.

And that's why I'm not allowed to DM anymore.

[Bdthemag]

Is it just me, or is chaotic neutral has the most wildly varying descriptions from DM to DM. My current DM believes that it's the Chaotic Neutral present in the 2E Rulebook, you know the one that is for insane/incredibly random people. I always thought it was sort of like being neutral, and valuing your own personal freedom over laws and whatnot. I've never had a single DM who has had the same opinion about Chaotic Neutral.