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Vulkarius
2010-01-24, 10:08 PM
I've been reading OOTS long before I actually started playing D&D (only nerd in my group of friends basicaly) but over the past couple weeks I've been playing 4e with some people once a week. I'm playing a LG Dragonborn Palading just to get the hang of the mechanics. I was wondering what would an honorbound Paladin do in a situation where he gave someone his word but in order to keep his word he would have to do something that contradicted his code of honor. IE: If he promised to help someone out and it turns out this "helping out" involved something like murder of innocent people that he thought were actually evil. Just curious I s'pose.

SurlySeraph
2010-01-24, 10:23 PM
Depends on the paladin and on what he has to do.

erikun
2010-01-24, 10:24 PM
This sounds like a point of interesting character development, actually. :smallsmile:

At this point, your character needs to decide which is more important to him. Does he keep his word, no matter what it entails and possibly betraying his virtues? Does he stick with his virtues, rescinding on his word? Does he somehow try to compromise, fully making his target aware of the assassination attempt but going ahead with it anyways? There really is not "right" answer, even for a LG character. Some may appear more appropriate depending on setting - the Arthurian Knight would likely do the first, while the honorbound Samurai would likely do the third - but the true "correct" answer depends on how you want your character to act and develop.

Also: 4e Paladins cannot lose their powers, and don't even need to be LG. Your deity and church may not like you afterwards though, depending on what you choose...

Gan The Grey
2010-01-24, 10:24 PM
The way I see it, helping is in the eye of the beholder. Our justice system views jailtime as rehabilitation, ie 'helping' the convicted. Just because you promised to help someone, doesn't mean you have to help them in a specific way.

My 2 cents.

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-01-24, 10:28 PM
Quick suggestion, you might want to indicate in the thread title which edition you're using, as paladins function differently between 4e and 3.5.

Mando Knight
2010-01-24, 10:31 PM
The way I see it, helping is in the eye of the beholder.

I don't think so...
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/4new/galleries/MonsterManual_art/img/114711_CN_GL.jpg

:smalltongue:

Ravens_cry
2010-01-24, 10:34 PM
I would say it depends very much on whether you focus more on Law or Good in your alignment. Keeping a promise to do something evil is still pretty evil, in my view.

Mando Knight
2010-01-24, 10:49 PM
I was wondering what would an honorbound Paladin do in a situation where he gave someone his word but in order to keep his word he would have to do something that contradicted his code of honor.

That's just silly. Someone who knows he's to keep his word will state his word in a manner that will not force him to contradict his more core values. It takes some getting used to, but it helps avoid a lot of idiot-traps.

erikun
2010-01-24, 11:05 PM
That's just silly. Someone who knows he's to keep his word will state his word in a manner that will not force him to contradict his more core values. It takes some getting used to, but it helps avoid a lot of idiot-traps.
Idonno, I feel that robs him of some very good character development. Especially with a young character, phrasing your conversations in legalese seems a bit conflicting with what I would assume to be an ideological nature.

That said, if Vulkarius is more interested in a "way out", one has already been presented. His paladin gave his word to help out someone, not to assist them. If this someone wants to sacrifice innocents for some evil sorcery, then the paladin could simply say "I am sorry, friend, but the best thing for everyone involved is if I turned you into the authorities" and attempt to subdue his opponent. (Thankfully, that is quite easier in 4e.)

Hey, I understand that not everyone wants a RP heavy campaign. Even those who enjoy heavy RP don't always want a heavy Honor/Morals internal conflict. I recommend that Vulkarius decides what kind of RP he'd like to have at the table, then decide on the most appropriate choice for his character.

Grumman
2010-01-24, 11:23 PM
Under no circumstances do you keep your word, if keeping your word involves murdering innocent people. You're playing a Paladin, not Judge Dredd.

Flickerdart
2010-01-24, 11:34 PM
Breaking your word is a Chaotic act. Do too many of those, and your alignment may shift to Neutral Good, which means you won't get to level as a Paladin until you get back to LG.
Performing an evil act makes you fall. You can't get your abilities back unless you receive Atonement.
The choice is pretty easy.

Vulkarius
2010-01-25, 12:59 AM
Don't think I'll plan to keep this character I feel that "justice" or what is right is relative and is constantly changing. Just got to wondering and wanted to see what others thought. Sorry for not posting 3.5e or 4 I know youre generally supposed to but I didn't know Paladins were different in the respective editions. And to clear the situation up a little I didn't mean the Paladin would willingly agree to something that would violate his code I meant something that would inadvertantly do so. IE Killing a band of (what you told were) 'bandits' but they turn out to be refugee's or something of the sort.

rezplz
2010-01-25, 03:05 AM
Don't think I'll plan to keep this character I feel that "justice" or what is right is relative and is constantly changing. Just got to wondering and wanted to see what others thought. Sorry for not posting 3.5e or 4 I know youre generally supposed to but I didn't know Paladins were different in the respective editions. And to clear the situation up a little I didn't mean the Paladin would willingly agree to something that would violate his code I meant something that would inadvertantly do so. IE Killing a band of (what you told were) 'bandits' but they turn out to be refugee's or something of the sort.If I was playing someone whose code said to keep his word no matter what, and if he was given that situation (told to kill bandits, but found out they were renegades instead) he wouldn't kill them. IMO, that kind of character would feel lied to, having been given misleading information. As such, his employer would have broken the bond first, leaving him under no requirement to kill the innocents.

Shardan
2010-01-25, 07:15 AM
with Paladins in 4e it matters more the god the paladin worships than just the alignment. Truthfully, there is no concrete 'this is how it works' rule for this. I would say that he would find some other way of helping that did not end in him doing something against his code of honor.

2xMachina
2010-01-25, 09:09 AM
Learn to promise better.

Say, promise to kill bandits. If they're not bandits, you don't need to kill them, cause all you agreed to is to kill bandits. Not bandits, no promise.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-25, 09:39 AM
Learn to promise better.

Say, promise to kill bandits. If they're not bandits, you don't need to kill them, cause all you agreed to is to kill bandits. Not bandits, no promise.
Or even better, promise to bring them to justice. Even if they are bandits, depending on the level of crimes they possibly have committed, you may not need to kill them.

kamikasei
2010-01-25, 09:51 AM
Don't let your word of honour write cheques your code of conduct can't cash. Seriously: if you take keeping promises seriously, you should be very wary of making promises. Don't give people you don't absolutely trust a blank cheque with which they can try to compel you to do evil later.

In general, I'd say get used to a mode of speech where you never make hard promises, but say you'll work for everyone's interests and to see justice done. Someone wants you to kill the bandits attacking them? You'll "put an end to the attacks". It turns out the bandits are impoverished locals pushed off their land? You, acting as an agent of your deity, hammer out a just settlement.

Be careful, though - this sort of play puts constraints on your companions, too. Make sure the rest of your table are okay with that style, and if not (maybe they want to be more straightforwardly mercenary, and to feel free to cold-heartedly cut down helpless refugees for pay or renege on a job they've come to find distasteful) consider a different character.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-25, 10:16 AM
He mentioned that it was 4E in the post, yeesh.

Anyway, murdering innocents surely goes way, way more against Lawful Good alignment, any Lawful Good code of conduct, and the will of any Lawful Good deity than breaking a poorly made promise. Someone who tries to get a Good character to do that should fully expect that the Good character will turn around and go back to confront him, possibly violently, if his trickery is discovered.

More generally, if you find out that someone lied to get you to make a promise, then you're not necessarily still obligated to keep it. (You might or might not be, depending on the circumstances.) That may not be an official rule, but it's just common sense, darn it!

bosssmiley
2010-01-25, 11:52 AM
I've been reading OOTS long before I actually started playing D&D (only nerd in my group of friends basicaly) but over the past couple weeks I've been playing 4e with some people once a week. I'm playing a LG Dragonborn Palading just to get the hang of the mechanics. I was wondering what would an honourbound Paladin do in a situation where he gave someone his word but in order to keep his word he would have to do something that contradicted his code of honour. IE: If he promised to help someone out and it turns out this "helping out" involved something like murder of innocent people that he thought were actually evil. Just curious I s'pose.

He'd pick the lesser evil. Or, if he had time to think it through, decide on a third solution that doesn't require any wrongdoing.

Paladins: Good ain't easy...

drengnikrafe
2010-01-25, 11:57 AM
Let's say you were involved in the following conversation, and felt somewhat bound to your word.

Person you don't know: "Hey, can you help me out real quick?"
You: "Sure, I guess so. What do you need?"
PYDK: "Give me fifty-thousand dolars so I can pay off my house. By the way, I'll never be able to pay it back." (or "Go ahead and assassinate the whole (group of people), wont'cha?")

What do you do? You don't have the money. Just like, as a paladin, you don't have the moral capacity to murder somebody without betraying everything you've ever believed in. You didn't know that "helping" would be murder. A vague contract that becomes specific is technically changed, thus meaning you gave your word to participate it activity style A, and he asked you to perform activity B. You never agreed to murder.

DSCrankshaw
2010-01-25, 12:07 PM
Fortunately, when you run into this in 4e, you can regard it as an interesting morality question, not a Fall-no-matter-what trap.

The answer, of course, is that you don't kill innocent people, no matter what you promised. Keeping your word to people is one thing, but keeping your word to your god--which is essentially what your code of conduct is--takes precedence. I don't see why there's even a question here. Whenever you make any promise, there's always an implied "as far as I am able" clause. You cannot be held accountable for not fulfilling a promise you are incapable of fulfilling (or rather, you're held accountable for making the promise in the first place, not for failure to fulfill it), and for an LG paladin, a promise that requires him to do something so heinous as to kill innocent people is a promise he cannot fulfill.

Now, the thing is, I think this scenario is actually pretty likely. Just replace "innocent people" with "innocent goblins," and you can see why this might come up. So it's a good idea not to make rash promises.

Lysander
2010-01-25, 04:44 PM
"Lawful" doesn't mean he's a literal minded robot. Unless he has some sort of complex magical vow of absolute honesty from his god he can break promises. He just doesn't use deceit as a tool to further his goals. Telling someone "This is BS. I'm not going to kill some innocent peasants for you" is not deceit.

Glass Mouse
2010-01-25, 05:18 PM
Huh? All of a sudden, I wanna try out 4e. Their paladins sound so much more interesting.

Really, moral dilemmas aren't nearly as much fun when there is a correct and an incorrect answer. Kinda defeats the purpose of dilemma, hm?



Don't think I'll plan to keep this character I feel that "justice" or what is right is relative and is constantly changing.

Heh. Yeah, in that case you shouldn't play anything alignment heavy. The idea in D&D is that morals ARE very much objective and certainly NOT changing. That's why alignment is pretty much impossible to impose on our world.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-27, 12:38 AM
Well, an essentially benevolent character who decides for himself what's right on a case by case basis is pretty much archetypal Chaotic Good in 3.5 and fits comfortably into the Good alignment in 4E. On the other hand, someone who killed innocents because he promised to would be Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral in 3.5, I s'pose. I guess that he'd be Unaligned in 4E, since that's theoretically supposed to be the category for someone not in any of the alignments... even though they give it a specific description of its own. :smallconfused: Really, describing Neutral as anything but "none of the above" was a flaw with 3.5 too, but Unaligned is, like, specifically supposed to be a "none of the above" category, isn't it? So how did they mess that up?

Soranar
2010-01-27, 12:51 AM
alright

make a list of priorities

Lawful Good character do their God's bidding so the usual (what would Odin/Bahamut/whatever you picked) would do applies

being tricked in giving your word to kill innocents should not be a binding word to a Paladin unless you want to play Lawful Stupid (which is a roleplay option too), he would uphold the greater good first

Even if you're Lawful Good you're not a machine, you can make errors in judgment and be sorry you have to break your word but break it to prevent a worst option

Mando Knight
2010-01-27, 12:57 AM
Idonno, I feel that robs him of some very good character development. Especially with a young character, phrasing your conversations in legalese seems a bit conflicting with what I would assume to be an ideological nature.

Legalese? Nope. All you have to do is put in your promise a disclaimer: "My vows to my deity and myself come first," "Deity willing," or something like that. There's no dishonor or real legalese in pointing out you've got a higher cause than just whatever you happen to have been conned into promising.

If the DM is looking for means of making you break your word, something like that is rather simple and entirely within character for a divinely powered character. However, it also means that your DM is looking for ways of messing you up, possibly hidden behind the thin facade of "character development," and the Joker is the wrong kind of DM to play with.

kamikasei
2010-01-27, 03:41 AM
Legalese? Nope. All you have to do is put in your promise a disclaimer: "My vows to my deity and myself come first," "Deity willing," or something like that.

Indeed, doing exactly that was (and still is in more places than I probably know of) a part of oath-making throughout history. You can find suitable phrasing that doesn't sound too awkward with just a little research - "god willing", "an' it please god", etc (perhaps inserting your character's deity's name in place of 'god', or not, as suits your style). (That said, looking at how knights gave their word within the bounds of their service to their lords might be more directly applicable.)

This sort of thing comes naturally with the idea that your word is binding. My favourite example is the oath of service Pippin swears in The Return of the King. The Gondorians know how important oaths are, so the 'escape clauses' included are "...until my lord release me, or death take me, or the world end". Because what if the world ended in their lifetimes? Wouldn't do to be stuck with the job for the rest of time...