What's your favourite way to make Paladins fall?

Even better question. Why bother with all the shenanigans? Just say the paladin falls! You're already abusing your power as DM and being a jackass, so why not go all the way?

>2017
>Wanting to make the paladin fall
>Trying to Lawyer morality, especially with the shittiest fucking "trick" in the book.

>responding to bait

Why is the Archfiend disguising himself as a beggar in the first place? Wouldn't he have a fuckton of minions to do shit like that for him?

With a trap door!

>What is detect evil

Any sane fucking paladin would detect evil everything, thus also disproving OP's point because A, the paladin KNOWS the beggar is obviously an evil entity and B OP is a massive Faggot.

the paladin doesn't even have to detect evil, unwittingly helping evil is not the same as willingly helping evil

I would know something is up if the beggar pings at all. In 3e/3.5/PF that means he has at least 5 HD. In 5e that means he's a demon/dragon/undead/etc. So the second he pings as anything you know something is up, it doesn't even have to be evil.

I was going on the assumption that the paladin doesn't just use detect evil on everything, because it's honestly sort of rude if you think about it.

even then they wouldn't fall.

I prefer to A). Do something actually clever or B). Not do it all and run a game that is fun

Fpbp.

Grease

>op is retarded

>Any sane fucking paladin would detect evil everything
In what edition? Did some old GM of yours give your pally the bad touch so much you got this unreasonably paranoid? Or did your parents perhaps beat you proactively over things like not doing something that was never explicitly stated but unreasonably expected in your childhood?

Detecting people's alignment is often considered an act of hostility.

I prefer a little trap I found in a premade adventure for the X-GM line called quest for the Inn. There is this delightful little bridge trap where the party has to cross carefully or they will drop into the pit below because the "bridge" basically flips around and thows them off because it's only secured in the middle. Bit of redneck engineering. Makes a fun puzzle for party to solve. If the weight gets unbalanced everyone gets thrown off and falls to their doom(tm).

Yes it is

nice try but that's not an argument

No it isn't.

you haven't explained why aiding evil, even unknowingly, isn't an evil act

keep trying

a moral code is not the easy way to live

You don't "make" paladins fall, cocksucker. The idea of a paladin falling is for DMs to punish munchkin players who want the powers of a paladin but go against the spirit of the class by not roleplaying them. People like you are what is wrong with RPGs.

Because it isn't. I don't have to explain common knowledge to you.

Evil requires intent

Who's going to fault the divinely-appointed cop from just scanning everyone in search of demons? It might be a bit rude or awkward, but when the alternative is Paladins randomly falling for stupid stuff like the OP, I think the populace will understand.

I actually recall one campaign where the paladin ended up doting after a NPC and she eventually became his waifu after a wedding that one of the big bads tried to crash

Being an adventurer he would be absent for long periods of time, so his waifu ended up having an affair

Every time he returned home there would be small hints, paladin didn't suspect anything was up until he literally caught the two of them fucking on top of a shrine he had dedicated to his god

He slew both of them on the spot and promptly fell, and after some negotiation with the GM, swapped over to being a woman hating anti-paladin

I hate you. Here's your (you), faggot.

>Gives the beggar a coin for which he is punished for willfully aiding evil.
How exactly is this aiding the archfiend?
What does it have use for a coin?

But OP, the paladin would just keep playing as good aligned and call you a faggot. How would you handle the fact that there is nothing you can do to stop him?

Pardon me sir but I need to check to make sure you are a legal citizen, check your car for drugs, search your anus for weapons, search your house for pirated movies, acquire info on every penny you have, and look in your garden for terrorists or I'll lose my badge.

This real-life Paladin is giving me a justice boner.

>ITT: Mad fallen pallies

I've invented a scenario called Loafception. Basically the paladin spots a poor baker's boy taking a shit in bread meant for a Good aligned noble. Already made 3 paladins fall this way in 2017.

How could that possibly make a paladin fall, you autist.

He was one coin short of buying the firestarter he needed to burn down the orphanage because he spent the last of his cash on chain and locks for the doors.

An archfiend who goes about burning down orphanages is a pretty shitty archfiend.

Everyone has to have a hobby.

Telling poor people not to shit in goods is evil

>remember it's my divine right to do so, sir.

No its not

perhaps i should of made use of >humour chevrons to signal the sarcasm

Look, it's OP again
what a titanic faggot
sucks everyone's cock

Anyway in some sort of attempt to get this onto a topic can a paladin fall without intending to do evil? I.e how many bad things can you do by accident before you become a bad person?

Unintentional evil results from an intentional lapse in adherence to a moral code.

If you willingly take up the mantle of morality, expect to be judged more harshly than others. If you cannot dedicate your whole life unswervingly to that code, you do not deserve to represent it.

If that sounds harsh or unfair, that's because it's supposed to be. If you just want to be a decent guy, don't call yourself anything more.

"I'm a vegan, but it's too hard to actually check if this food contains meat, so it doesn't matter"

So what's the way a paladin can resolve this scenario without falling? You did have one in mind, don't you?

Because falling is when a paladin makes a fully informed, willing choice to go against whatever oaths he's made or god he's chosen to serve. It's when you start slaying the innocent because you don't care anymore, or you kill a prisoner because of how much you hate him when in all rights you should keep him alive.

It is not a thing about trickery. Otherwise a devil would be able to do exactly what you do to every single paladin, or you could just mind control them into chopping up their families and call it a day.

Detect evil when apprehended by someone asking for money.

This isn't hard, is it?

Tells the beggar to make his own way in life and not rely merely on the generosity of others.

Not like the archfiend isn't doing his own thing already, and it's not /not/ helping them.

Are you OP? If not, how are you sure OP won't make the paladin fall for using Detect Evil on a civilian?

So how does being tricked count as an intentional lapse in your moral code?

Notice how OP doesn't respond to these.

user pls

>waahhh i didn't PERFORM A REASONABLY EXPECTED ACT OF DUE DILIGENCE WHY AM I PUNISHED?

"but i shouldn't have to check if food is kosher"
"but i shouldn't have to check if she's underage"
"but i shouldn't have to check if i'm over the legal limit"
"but i didn't know the goods were stolen"

>can a paladin fall without intending to do evil?
Never, being wrong isn't a moral failing.

none of those are especially relevant, being tricked would be
>she showed me an ID that turned out to be fake after the fact.

Ideally, a Paladin only falls when he chooses to or thinks he should. "Falling" is more about questioning your faith or making a conscious decision to abandon it. Acts that accidentally aid evil shouldn't make a Paladin fall unless he blames either himself or his god allowing it to happen and becomes so disillusioned he loses his connection and powers. Paladins falling are hugely telegraphed things if you know what to look for; you should know a Paladin is going to fall long before he does, provided he doesn't manage to turn himself around. Also if you can read his mind because internal struggles may not be obvious to everyone.

The caveat here is that this only applies if you are roleplaying a faith based holy warrior correctly. If your Paladin can just wake up a be a dick one day after a single revelation, you're doing it wrong. Paladins train almost their whole lives dedicated to ideals, and shit that challenges those ideals become a struggle more than a flipped switch. In the case of accidentally aiding evil, the number of times it happens is incidental to how the Paladin himself reacts to it. Beating himself up over it can lead to either more thorough checks in the future, perhaps to an overzealous degree that eventually causes a fall from the belief that everything is a potential trick. Or he can pick himself back up and promise to do better without compromising his beliefs. Repeated failures at this WILL affect someone; there is no concrete number of times this can happen, the "fall" is just the breaking point where they stop believing.

However, this is only an ideal. The reality where someone can play a Paladin ignoring their mistakes and happily continuing on despite aiding or doing evil at every turn necessitates the fall mechanic to be used even when the Paladin's character still believes.

...

>He slew both of them on the spot and promptly fell
Reasonable
>fucking on top of a shrine he had dedicated to his god
I won't say they were asking for it, because they didn't, but whoa!

Holy fucking fuck, someone that gets it properly.

One of the most problematic things I have while playing my Paladin is, well, guile. It's kosher for a Paladin to try to outwit Evil beings? The usual "paladins can't lie". My DM has no problems in allowing a Paladin to lie to the evil henchmen for the greater good, but it still leaves a peculiar taste. After all, I can kill evil beings with no repercussions: lying to them should be ok.

Maybe. Who knows.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions lad.

So today it's my turn, guys?

post scriptum
OP kill yourself

>I use the ole archfiend -disguised-as-a-beggar trick: either he A). Disregards the hapless beggar on the street for which he is punished for not aiding Good or B). Gives the beggar a coin for which he is punished for willfully aiding evil. Either way his bitch ass is falling
>the paladin brings the beggar to a church and redeems him
>archfiend now is redeemed

What now, fella?

So what you're telling me is only Evil characters can be paladins since they don't have the arrogance to assume they can always make the Good choice

Le ebin all caps tripfag :^)

Damn, that story reminds me of The Count from Berserk.

good intentions for some but not all. Name one evil act that was done for the good of all
Inb4 communism do you really think intentionally starving the Ukrainians was for the good of everyone

... And evil fucking actions. It's not just have one good intention, go straight to hell, it's killing folks for the greater good or burning down the slum to stop the spread of a plague

Do you have the divinely granted means to determine if an act is evil and choose not to use them because you trust your mortal understanding is superior to divine will?

If so, why do you believe you have the right to wield those powers and be an emissary and embodiment of divine will?

There is a term for "martial hero who is a good person to the best of their ability"

GOOD ALIGNED FIGHTER

For a Paladin, "good enough" is not anywhere near appropriate. You should be literally incorruptible. You shouldn't even remotely stand a chance of falling for an obvious deception. You should always be alert to efforts to deceive or corrupt you.

If you fall for a trick it should be because YOU, CONSCIOUSLY OR NOT, LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. And so REGARDLESS of the circumstances, if you could be deceived, you were unworthy of being an instrument of the infallible divine.

If a player is confident they can, in fact, roleplay a character of that level of piety, it is the responsibility of the GM to make them prove it.

Such unwavering faith and rectitude must be tested.

I haven't seen a player who could play a paladin by these rules. It means when they meet NPCs the title means something. Paladin isn't "good guy fight man" it's "living embodiment of divine will" AND THAT MEANS SOMETHING

In Baldur's Gate, the video game, there was a paladin-specific scenario, where you had to go and protect a girl, and hand her over to the next guardian, while making sure the bad guys don't get hold of her.

The person comes to pick her up, and he has a 1/2 chance of being an assassin. If you let the assassin near the girl, she dies. If you kill the person, and he's not an assassin, you fail the mission.

The correct answer is to use detect evil. The assassin shows up as evil.

Gods give you these powers for a reason, bruh.

>thinking a medieval society has modern checks and balances against government abuse of power

Exactly my point. If you have them and choose not to, you are literally saying that you know better than the divine.

Which is heresy.

How can any one man be so desperate for (You)s?

>I bestow this power upon you that will help you to distuingish right from wrong and help making the world a better place
>But seriously though, using it is pretty rude so don't do it.

This is some lazy bait folks. Shame

'Well, since the architect of our world is clearly a massive faggot, we totally understand.
Seriously, fuck the idiot who created our world.'
NPCs can detect a shit DM.