"Paladin who smites evil on sight, never gives them a chance to repent, solves everything with violence" Appreciation thread.
Fuck evil.
Fuck people who need a divine warrior to talk to them like a psychiatrist to stop them from being evil.
Fuck anyone who sympathizes with evil.
Smite first. Smite second. Ask questions (to your God) third.
Is that why you massacred your entire order?
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"
I'm really starting to dig that idea of paladin more and more these days. I'm tired of paladins being fucking D&D social services for evil people.
Fuck yeah
Lawful Neutral > Lawful Good
Divine law is above the whims of man!
Sometimes evil just needs to get its ass kicked
Really the difficulty I have is determining what exactly is evil enough to smite on sight and what's actually just neutral-but-taking-an-antagonistic-role-due-to-circumstances. Since I'm stuck with Detect Undead and Demons rather than Detect Evil, and there's plenty of apparent bad guys who don't fit the former categories.
I agree. Detect Evil only pings when something has greatly become entrenched in evil. A drunkard would not ping as evil, but the banker who intentionally writes unfair loans and cheats those out of their daily bread out of greed would ping as evil.
>Divine Law
>Your interpretation of it is divine law
I'm really glad that 5e paladins aren't alignment bound. Now all the stereotypical murderhobo Javert paladins can have their proper alignment, Lawful Evil.
Funny thing is AD&D flat out stated that randomly smiting anyone who pinged even slightly evil was itself an evil act.
I guess I'm just tired of moral relativity and redemption and all that other stuff.
Now I just want to protect the good people and destroy the wicked.
>Ending evil is evil
>Ending good is good
>Ending neutrality is neutral
Retard
I like some good old-fashioned 'bring down holy light to smight the evil lord fuckass' myself, but I'm also a slut for stuff like the overlord's second-in-command betraying his master, or a lesser villain teaming up with the protagonists to stop an even more dickheaded villain.
I'll agree though, forced 'moral greyness' has kind of oversaturated storytelling as of recently. Sometimes you just want an irredeemably horrible villain to kick down a flight of stairs, you know?
No such thing as good people and evil people user.
There's just people.
>hurrrr
The alignment section in both the 1e and 2e PHB is pretty much clear on that. You're not ending a great evil by going full Robocop on a mildly conceited innkeeper, you're actually worse than the 90s trenchcoat and katana edgelord.
Evil confirmed for whiny poet who makes excuses.
Who is worse? The baker who mixed chalk into the flour or the banker that has stolen thousands from the poor.
But good and evil are actual elemental concepts in D&D.
This isn't even remotely comparable.
>baker dilutes the flour
>baker is able to make more food (perhaps worse quality)
>more food equals less starving people
banker
>steals money
>benefits solely himself
I don't know what the purpose of this comparison was.
Go away Satan. Your lies and misdirection do you no good here.
For outsider beings, not for fucking mortals
Both are still evil in D&D
Because
Said that there was no such thing as evil people. The banker in the comparison is the evil person and the baker is considered the good person. Now do that comparison with all of society and you can really determine who the good people are and who the evil people are.
Who /questing/ here? Just quested for a holy relic in a defiled tomb, shit was so cash
Or are you all out just killing goblins when you should be questing for your god and monarch?
>baker has a family he must feed
>feed by selling more baked goods
>he pledges to not mix chalk into the flour once he can afford it
This can be spun so many ways to make it not evil even by the most retarded of D&D standards.
If you gleefully murder anyone evil your character is not a paladin, he's a theoretically justified bloodthirsty psychopath
That's no more a paladin than the Punisher is a paladin
Says the Evil apologist. The world would be a 100% better place without the evil people, and this applies to every fantasy universe out there.
The Punisher was a more compelling character than Daredevil in the recent series, and arguably he was right about everything too.
user, evil people invent all the cool stuff
Like nuclear weapons, neoliberal economic policy and the 30 year mortgage. Thanks Evil!
>>baker dilutes the flour
>>baker is able to make more food (perhaps worse quality)
Breadmaking was serious shit back in premodern times m8, with pretty rigid regulations on quality and prices. If a baker was caught cutting chalk into his mix, they'd see very serious punishment.
He's a interesting character on moderate dosages only
"Psshh nothin personnel kid, oh by the way this guy was marginally worse than I am" gets old.
A recent Civil War storytime in /co/ had someone sum up the whole character by saying that while other characters have plot armor he has plot guns. He can kill literally anyone with his guns as long as the plot calls for it, logic needs not apply.
>logic need not apply
Actually, guns are pretty good at killing people.
Also the punisher is only good in a universe where he doesn't have to deal with other characters. He is a hero that goes from an all American vigilante that we think we need, to stupid, by the mere inclusion of another superhero.
Good and Evil is like Heat and Cold. They're not opposing forces, one is the absence of the other.
I'm still kicking the shit out of people who aren't good enough tho
It's not a GOOD thing to do but it's certainly not smite-able evil.
It's not selfish in the way that it's overtly harming others, it's not malicious, and it's not affecting huge populaces. It's just a guy trying to make a living going through a rough patch.
However, if a baker mixes chalk into his flour JUST BECAUSE HE CAN, then it's an issue, but even then it's a slap-on-the-wrist issue, a sort of "Look, stop doing this or we report you to the authorities. While you're at it why don't you give away your unpurchased breads to the poor instead of selling it like it's fresh".
I just don't see a baker mixing chalk into his flour as POSSIBLY being evil to the point of deserving divine judgment.
If a man steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, is that evil?
People to whom getting shot is not worse than a beesting are not on short supply in the marvel universe. The workaround writers use is to give him all sorts of ridiculous sci-fi tech just so they can justify having him on a story where most other characters could beat him to a tar while blindfold and with one hand tied.
Wrong. It's usually people who want to do the right thing but get their shit warped by evil people. The dude who invented dynamite was a pacifist, for example.
>I just don't see a baker mixing chalk into his flour as POSSIBLY being evil to the point of deserving divine judgment.
My poor daughter is deathly allergic to chalk, but that's just a little insignificant detail, because it's her birthday and I got her her favorite thing in the entire world, a fresh loaf of delicious bread.
...
I wish you could roll a Chaotic Good Paladin in Baldur's Gate. Lawful Good is lame.
No, it isn't lawful though, but it wouldn't be enough to drop their alignment.
It is physically impossible to be allergic to chalk. The only reported cases were the dust-free chalk additives giving someone a severe cough because it contained a milk protein.
My DM wasn't a fan of me attempting to execute some thieves. As a Paladin of the god of law. Fuck crime, laws are laws.
He probably would've let the CG character commit genocide though.
What did they steal, exactly?
Summary execution is against most legal systems, edgetard.
Was there not a LAW which told you something other to do in that situation?
"Let me put chalk in this bad milk so that it's still white so that people will buy and drink it"
Lawful doesn't mean your committed to a countries law, but rather your deities and personal code.
There should be laws against backpedaling.
>Playing a sexy Sororitas-esque tin can of a paladin.
>Fighting an erinyes.
>It becomes apparent that I have neither ranged weapons nor flight.
>The erinyes starts plinking arrows at me from the air.
>No other options available. Time to break out my secret weapon.
>Roll Perform Dance to shake dat ass. 18 on the die, plus 10.
>The erinyes is intrigued.
>Offer to quietly sweep this whole "starting a cult" thing under the rug if she comes back to my church for atonement and redemption.
>Explain that the process of becoming Lawful Good will involve a lot of "friendship lessons," wink wink, nudge nudge.
>She agrees.
>The church already has a female salamander and a harpy.
>Apparently we Church of Monster Girls now.
>Induct the erinyes as an acolyte and my waifu.
This is how I paladin.
Antipaladin pls go
You are a terrible person, and a living embarrassment.
It's appropriate in certain situations.
Side note, I, a forever DM, desperately want someone to run this module for me.
He didn't say he was lawful, he said he was a paladin of the god of law and was going to execute the thieves for breaking the law
To be fair It's almost entirely dependent on the system and campaign setting which one of those it is.
>Local law stipulates that the punishment for theft is public-mockery, incarceration or amputation of a hand, depending on the value and importance of the object stolen
>Foreign weenie in plate-armor has overstepped his place and appointed himself judge, jury and executionor
Assuming your god doesn't rightfully abandon you for being a lawbreaking goob, the local authorities would be well within their right to convict you for this.
...
>your party meets outside a tavern
>you see a suspicious looking man with a sign
>it's a paladin recruiting an army to invade hell
>have to play in a Good pathfinder group
>play inquisitor of Ragathiel
>empyreal lord of Vengeance
>Lawful Good as fuck
>respond to murder with murder
>mfw I don't even have to abide by a paladin code
Sarenrae get fucked.
As a primarly-evil-character player, i appreciate you. Where has the world come, when we evil-doers can't wear our spiked crown of doom and our belt of skulls without having a band of do-gooders trying to convert us back to goodness with happiness and pleasentries? What the hell do they even want?
Purge the antipaladin
>My poor daughter is deathly allergic to chalk, but that's just a little insignificant detail, because it's her birthday and I got her her favorite thing in the entire world, a fresh loaf of delicious bread.
Chances are he didn't know about the allergy and if he did, like any normal person, he would serve you specifically a loaf of actually fresh chalk-free bread or find another way to NOT end up killing someone. And let's say he doesn't really care all that much about your daughter, even so he'd still try to give you a loaf of chalk-free bread if he knows of your daughter's allergy because he WOULDN'T WANT HIS BUSINESS SHUT DOWN. Not evil. Evil is the act AND the intent, with intent being an integral part.
You sir, give paladins a bad name. For it is truly foolish to seek to convert evil, yes. However, to turn away those seeking redemption is to turn your back on your lawful good god!
If he's selling his bread without informing the buyer that his loaves have been cut with chalk, then he's befrauding people and committing a misdeed. His motivations might be sympathetic, but he's still committing a crime and depriving others, possibly even less fortunate, of what they have rightfully bought.
So a petty crime is the same kind of evil that deserves divine judgement? He is a common man doing what common men do; make mistakes and be ignorant of potential, long-term repercussions. He's guilty of a little greed and a little deception, but ultimately he would be the kind of person that's very easily redeemable. He's not demon material. A paladin wouldn't smite him or destroy his business because a paladin understands that ultimately this baker feeds people and the people depend on him. He'd slap the guy on the wrist, but it wouldn't go beyond that, or the paladin is an overzealous unwise prick that has no business being a paladin-- the embodiment of ultimate wisdom and virtue that men are capable of. He would be much less concerned about punishing petty crime than redeeming the ones that committed them.
The baker is not evil.
>>Playing a sexy Sororitas-esque tin can of a paladin.
>>Fighting an erinyes.
>>It becomes apparent that I have neither ranged weapons nor flight.
>>The erinyes starts plinking arrows at me from the air.
>>No other options available. Time to break out my secret weapon.
>>Roll Perform Dance to shake dat ass. 18 on the die, plus 10.
"You succeed on your roll to insult the erinyes. She bares her teeth and screams that you're a slut and your God should thank her for the beating she's about to give you."
My setting has a "sanctuary" safe word against all Paladins. You essentially give yourself to the goodwill of the paladin if you use it.
Fun fact. There is NO FUCKING CHALK ALLERGY IN EXISTENCE. The only thing that is even semi-related is from MODERN. PROCESSED. CHALK ADDITIVES.
According to my Paladin senses he is.
Things are a little too black and white: He's not a baby-eating monster, but he's still unfairly putting himself over others and their nutritional needs. I'll concede that a paladin in full-plate charging down his shop would be excessive for baker's fraud, but those who have scraped up their earnings to buy bread and found themselves served short deserve justice too.
How's this for a compromise: The baker is helped in getting his business back on its own two feet, but until such a deed is finished he's only allowed to eat bread cut with chalk. The baker no longer needs to resort to bread fraud, a quite serious crime in those days, to survive, but he also learns what it was like for those on the other side of things. Would this be satisfactory?
Please give examples so I don't think it's retarded.
Or you could do what they did back then when bread makers did cut with chalk. Force them to sell a baker's dozen (13) in leu of their normal dozen at the same price.
>this baker has used chalk in his bread
>... HE IS NOT SERVING PURE BREAD TO THE PEOPLE
>THIS IS A CRIME
>He is EVIL.
>I am justified in being the arbiter of supreme justice and will DESTROY him.
>What, he's supporting a family?
>HE IS EEEEVIL
This kind of thinking is precisely why GMs give paladin players suspicious looks.
24601, you know damn well it is. Now get back to lifting super heavy things
I think you're missing the point.
So you're going to roleplay your paladin murdering a baker and destroying his business, then justifying it as well-deserved divine retribution because he put chalk on his flour because somehow that makes him irredeemably Evil with a capital E? Can't you get of murderhobo mentality and roleplay something that isn't killing people for a moment?
No. You're missing the point that there is absolutely nothing detrimental to the health of people partaking in this bread, which decreases how evil you perceive him to be.
This is PRECISELY how it should be considered. I never argued he was innocent; I merely argued that he is not Evil. In fact, he wouldn't even register as evil on Detect Evil unless the GM is stupid.
He does deserve some sort of punishment for the slight injustice he has inflicted upon others, but not because he is evil, because he has made a mistake.
>The baker is helped in getting his business back on its own two feet, but until such a deed is finished he's only allowed to eat bread cut with chalk.
This is a perfect punishment. It helps everyone and teaches him a lesson without resorting to some uncanny murderhobo frontier justice. THIS is the kind of thinking that a paladin should have. Nobody is "GOOD" or "EVIL" except for people that explicitly devote themselves to such things or through their regular actions spread these things.
You've killed the baker. Congratulations, the town now has no baker, a family has lost its primary source of income, and you've caused a major system shock to the localized agrarian economy.
I was mocking the person in favor of killing the baker, sorry it wasn't clear.
"Pumpkin patch!"
"...just the tip?"
"Pumpkin patch!"
"Fine. I'll take you to jail... Fucking tease."
Do we really need to find the specific disease where an unknown intake of chalk may have disastrous effects on the person, or are you able to look past that and realize that the matter is about a person misleading someone else who trusts them and who may have something extremely important depending on that trust not being broken?
Personally, to me, Paladin's are like a cruise missile. Detect Evil is their radar. Low life thieves, cheaters, gamblers, adulterous people, bullies, even kids that sometimes set fire to the tail of a cat, won't ping in the detect evil spell. They might act evil, commit evil acts, but that's different from 'being evil'. A man could kill another in a fit of jealousy or anger and that's undoubtely and evil act if not in self defense. But that man is not an evil person, he just commited an evil act. He's not gonna detect on a Detect Evil spell. He is going to suffer, regret his decision and may or may bot attone for it.
But a man that feels not remorse killing, and its likely to kill again. A bandit that kills his victims in order to avoid getting caught, instead of just stealing from them, or a soldier that rape and kill innocent. Those people who tend to act evil, rather than a one time thing, or a very eventual situation. Those that, whenever they can, will hurt others for the sake of themselves or for pleasure, those will detect as evil.
The gods, you see, don't waste cruise missiles on civilians or low priority targets. They send them after the big guns. Those low lives will suffer through normal karma, or their own conscience. is those who are not plagued by a conscience that need the smiting of a blade.
And, in my opinion, is this is not how you do it, then you should really think about why you do it differently. Maybe, just maybe, you just want to be a dick to paladins.
fucking christ, thank you
The word itself invokes a divine contract.
Parole.
It's parlay you cheeky cunt
Paladin falls.
did... did he pull something out of his own stomach to lasso the bug-man?
Why is it evil? Not with them but i want to know why
I've seen Megatron turn autobot and it was well done, so redemption certainly has its place in story telling, but I get this so much
Just killing someone because their being is more predisposed towards cosmic evil(like, child conceived during an evil cult's ritual, a half-orc in any setting where all Orcs are evil, tieflings, etc.), rather than observing them and seeing whether or not they embrace evil or strive to help others against their nature, is an evil act, because you're no better than the evildoers if you go about killing people for the nature of their birth, rather than their actions..
>Satan caused the crusades by speaking to the greed of men in their own voice, knowing they'd say god told them too
>playing a lawful good paladin
>instead of a lawful evil crusader
It's like you don't like fun/ a kingdom of Jerusalem
Technically he's ripping it from his belt, but it does seem to be part of his body.
He also managed to pull a spear.
Not to let a soul go to waste
So now taking non lethal options is evil?
>questing
>wasting time that could be spend fighting unbelievers/ heathens
Leave the menial tasks to self-proclaimed adventurers, you're not just hired muscle
>lawful evil crusader
The Crusader Class is only available to the Lawful Good alignment user.