reminder: reality has always conflicts of moral standards
as long as intelligent beings exist , morals will always collide, even in fantasy
that being said, if paladins can not solve a situation of conflicting morals without falling , you are either too stupid or you play a game with faulty design. there has never been a "lol you fall" situation you couldnt have solved with some knowledge.
>you are either too stupid or you play a game with faulty design
Or you have a shitty GM.
Your point is fundamentally undermined by the existence of the GM. While in an abstract sense it is correct, the 'lol u fall' situations are almost never due to actual moral complexity, and simply due to the will of a malicious omnipotent entity, within the context of the game.
With a fair GM, a Paladin player is unlikely to ever fall if they act with a little forethought and self awareness.
With an unfair GM, your paladin falls no matter what you do, because you will be consistently denied a good option.
If you have That DM, then you adopt the orc baby and raise her.
we had a thread about "aborting a demon baby at the risk of killing the mother"
is the creation of the situation already an unfair act by the gm or does it depend on the final judgement of said gm?
"You fall for aiding an Evil being."
Have you tried not playing D&D?
yes
but this is not a "pls halp me guyz" thread anyway
>if paladins can not solve a situation of conflicting morals without falling
Is it thought? Many religions are based on penitence and that you should atone for wrongdoings, regardless of what they are or the circumstances. Is it really so terrible that after a major challenge to their faith a paladin should have to return to their church to seek spiritual rejuvenation.
It's great as a character arc, the problem is that with most DND campaigns the paladin suddenly losing most of their powers is a major hindrance to progression of the main plot thread.
Sounds like you're in a bit of a pickle, OP.
birht the demon and smite it
if you die and some more people then alteast you tried to be juste.
>Have you tried not playing D&D?
OP doesn't play anything.
Do nothing.
Inaction isn't considered evil right? Cowardly perhaps but not evil.
I thought a Paladin could only fall by performing a series of ostensibly evil acts. Surely you don't just make one wrong choice in the heat of the moment and "lol you've fallen bro!"
i play a shitty homebrew i already made 2 more versions of, with a 2d10 x skill/stat multiplication system
Thats why you get so powerful, you can enforce your morals without retaliation. Might is always right, but that doesnt mean the weak should suffer nor that you have to be tyrannical.
Evil is what your opponent consider good. You can test morality for consistency (ie criticize someone for thinking X would casuse Y when you think it won't) but you can't really criticize from objective standpoint someone's endgoal.
In D&D good and evil are pretty objective. That's the only reason to use alignment in fact.
Otherwise everyone is good from their own perspectives including the mad king who butchers the peasants for sport, the lich lord who raises an army of undead to conquer the kingdom, etc...
There's no point in using alignment unless good and evil are objectively defined.
SSIEEEEGMEEEEYYERRR!
This. It's also why I hate the Law-Chaos axis, I find it shaky.
I would say you need a dm that would have absolutely no overriding opinion on abortion to even have a chance of it being fair.
Then this gm would have to have put together a deity portfolio BEFORE the game started so a paladin knows what exactly he is championing.
Have you tried a new meme?
The days where you could dismiss dnd out of hand is over.
Stop trying to justify killing orc babies, faggot.
As long as the paladin does what they think is the best option to carry out good as defined by the laws and ideals of their god or gods, they should not fall
I'd be more inclined to listen if you had even a basic grasp of punctuation, sentence structure, moral philosophy, or tabletop RPGs.
But from your post I must conclude you to be wholly ignorant of all those, and that you somehow managed to type all that and accidentally end up with something resembling a post.
how was your day , user?
With a good GM, you could roleplay the whole atonement process and your PC could emerge stronger in his faith and renewed in his purpose.
With a bad GM, lolno you need a cleric able to cast Atonement, until then enjoy being a shittier fighter or embrace the OMGsomaturemuchgrimdark blackguard/antipaladin. And that is if the bad GM allows it, I've seen plenty of GMs sporting a hateboner at the mere thought of making a paladin fall without a chance of doing either.
>mortal race being inherently evil without direct demonic corruption
fuck you and fuck your setting
You're not familiar with complicity laws, are you?
THIS SHIT ABOUT PALADINS TIRES ME
MAKE A HOMERULE "OATHS": YOUR DEITY MAKES YOU TAKE 2-3 OATHS, YOU BREAK THEM - PENANCE, YOU SAY "FUCK THESE OATHS" - EXCOMMUNICATION
SAME SHIT WITH WARLOCKS AND BLACKGUARD, BUT THEY HAVE EVIL DEITY AND EDGY OATHS
AM I KAWAII YET
It would go a long way to just know if personal codes are lawful or chaotic.
I think they should count as chaotic since they are defined by no one but yourself.
stop screaming you are scaring me
Even in real life you can get into a situation that is impossible to win and anything do can only change how hard you lose.
and the answer was hellboy
Pretty good I got to check some sweet dubs.
AND THIS SHIT
HOW ABOUT "LAWFUL HAVE PRINCIPLES, CHAOTICS DO WHATEVER THE HELL THEIR ALIGNMENT WITHOUT ANY HESISTATION"
NO
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
gypsies?
OVERCOME YOUR EMOTIONS AND BE BRAVE UGUU
There's nothing wrong with orcs being always evil.
They're violent and uncivilized, and noble savage is the worst thing ever to exist as a trope.
>Abort demon baby
DAMMIT JIM, I'M A PALADIN NOT A DOCTOR
thats why it is "at the risk of killing the mother"
god in his wisdom would understand the hopelessness of the situation , the paladin should not fall for taking "the lesser evil"
NO ONE IS EVIL IN NATURE, SHITTY ORC (OR GYPSY LIKE MENTIONED) CULTURE CAN MAKE YOU AN ASSHOLE A'RIGHT, BUT NOT FROM THE GODDAMN BIRTH
MY ASS IS ON FIRE
Can someone explain what noble savage even means? Is it just the opposite of bloodthirsty backwards savages, in that instead of doing nothing right they can do nothing wrong?
whats with the capslock , anyway?
Well if orcs are less a player race and more a magical creature/monster in the setting they can be innately evil because magic.
SEE: WARCRAFT ORCS LEAD BY THRALL
IT'S LIKE THEY ARE STILL SAVAGE BUT HAVE CODE OF HONOR AND TRADITIONS, WHICH ARE LOGICAL THINGS AND THAT'S WHY IS A BITCH
tarzan , pocahontas (if you watched the disney movies)
Having your rectum aflame is very painful.
Ok. Magic of ELEMENTAL EEEEEVIL is okay.
CAPS IS LOVE CAPS IS LIFE
ALSO I'M A FAGGOT CRAVING FOR ATTENTION
Orcs in warcraft are still shitty.
Warrior cultures based on honor a shit.
YEA
BASE IT ON EVERYONE WISHING TO WAGE ETERNAL WAR
ORKS FOR THE WIN AND I'M NOT IRONIC
WAAAAAAAGH!
>cultures based on respect from your peers are shit
???
Just because they're warriors doesn't mean they don't care what everyone else around the fire thinks of them.
Except for Gur'whact. Gur'whact can eat a dick.
Why would ANY culture NOT have traditions?
THE WORLDBUILDER IS TOO LAZY TO PUT IN TRADITIONS SO HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Usually it's a bad interpretation of already poor rules.
IIRC, there's one system that allows for a Paladin to seek atonement and regain their powers fairly easily, as well as receiving a whole new list of different powers at the moment they fall so they aren't reduced to shitty fighters. Was it 5e?
It was basically, "Your Paladin has suffered and error and needs to be reset." the falling rules. Also, IIRC, atonement would also end any changes or effects persisting on the character, such as forced alignment shift.
Are we seeing the rebirth of MR. RAGE? The tripfag who posted good, calm, well-intentioned advice in an aggressively all-capitalized manner?
Though it seems like this one need a bit of cut and polish first.
Boy don't you dare force memes.
As said, you miss the point of the "lol you fall" scenario.
These situations are created by an all-powerful third party with the final say and malevolent intentions.
>Orc baby, what do you do?
>I kill it
>You've slain an innocent, you fall.
>I take it in, and raise it/hand it off to a Good family so it grows up decent
>Orcs are Evil, it will grow up into a monster and no conditioning will change that. You've allowed it to eventually kill innocents. You fall.
>I leave it there
>You've abandoned someone in need. You fall.
"Lol you fall" scenarios are not meant to be an actual moral test. They're unwinnable scenarios designed by someone who just wants to be a dick and will abuse their power to give any roundabout reason for you to fall. And since they're the GM, they have final say.
These situations are like the Kobayashi Maru test, except they're designed and proctored by someone using it as an excuse to kick you out of Starfleet.
>These situations are like the Kobayashi Maru test
"Alirght James your paladin encounters an orc baby left orphaned by its parents you slaughtered what do you do?"
"... well first of all. Leonard?"
"Hey guys I found this neat game called Traveller, it looks fun. Why don't we play it?"
"What?"
*the party unanimously agrees*
"Well I guess that settles that!"
"H-hey come on guys stop kidding now tell me what you do about the orc baby-"
"I won't say what my paladin does because my paladin doesn't deal with immoral entities who only exist to cause pointless misery and strife for others and neither do I... now would you like to play Traveller wis us or would you like to pack up your things and leave? The choice is yours."
Based Kirk once again shows us you can win unwinnable scenarios.
>implying killing orc babies needs justification
>not having a savvy rogue-bro in the party who is aware of these moral quandaries who takes initiative and kills the baby, preventing the Paladin from falling and getting off with a scolding at best
Pfft.
I always go out of the way to defend the Paladin from moral traps that the DM sets. The Paladin gets to stay holier than thou, pretend to be outraged at me, and I get to benefit from him using Lay on Hands and smiting the fuck out of undead shit at all times.
While I love the idea of some rogue who's willing to spare someone's conscious like that, if the GM is a "lol you fall" jackass you're just giving him ammo.
>The rogue has slain an innocent, what do you do?
>I do nothing and continue on
>You let a blatant act of Evil go unpunished. You fall.
>I attack/kill/imprison the rogue
>Rest of the group: don't fucking attack party members, you fag.
Oh, I usually let the Paladin knock me unconscious or arrest me, and then I break out of jail and he has to accede that they need me for the greater good, since no one else can disarm the deadly World Ending Macguffin but a master rogue like myself.
It's a good system.
>The rogue continues to do Evil and you refuse to enact meaningful justice on him.
>You are complicit to Evil and are effectively doing Evil yourself. You fall.
That said it sounds like you have a good group and a good GM.
Reminder: the majority of conflicts in reality are caused by conflicts of religious zealotry.
The trick to beating this kind of DM is similar to how the legal system works. You have to establish precedence and then use it against him OOC to call him on bullshit and prevent those kind of plays.
So if killing someone who simply Detects as Evil is okay, then killing the Orc baby is okay. But if it isn't just enough to Detect as Evil, then the Rogue can save the Paladin most of the time by doing his deeds UNSEEN to the Paladin.
The DM can't punish the Paladin for not-metagaming. He usually doesn't actually see me committing the crimes I use to spare him from the DM.
It takes groundwork, for sure. You need to cause some minor hijinx first to force the DM to establish precedence which you can then hold against him.
*tips*
Who?
Nice fucking try, newfriend.
I saw that thread but didn't really read it. I would hope the GM had worked out some of the overall elements in story/scenario. If they had built it with full intention of trapping a player in an impossible situation without a solution or growth/penance/redemption, then maybe it's time to stop playing with said GM until they learn to play responsibly and with respect.
Oh man, Mr. Rage was my favourite namefag.
The scenario that OP described was
>Paladin enters town
>Detects Evil on pregnant lady
>Child is Evil, mother is not
>What do.
Some tripfag tried to defend it as an interesting plot point, suggesting the child was a demon trying to worm its way into reality. Other posters pointed out even if that's the case, the hypothetical GM introduced it in the most retarded way possible. Mostly because he A)doesn't understand Detect Evil, B) hinged his plot hook on a paladin compulsively casting it on everyone, and C) presented it in a way which reeked of an orc baby what do scenario.
If the GM had worked some things out, I think it could potentially be an interesting plot -except it doesn't sound like it was thoroughly thought out.
It can go a lot of ways. Personally, I would have subtly implied the mother was the true bad guy, and she was using the baby as a vessle for some demon she wanted to bring into the world. There's something really vile about that, and more than a twinge of sadness to it as well.
Thought that makes for a better background for an NPC (or even a PC) than it does a plot point, because most likely the mom or the baby or both are just getting killed no matter how well you run that scenario.
Well technically it's an NPC in the hands of a GM no matter how you cut it, though the amount of work done for them is going to vary. She seems to be more than a minor character though, since the party is going to have to interact with her. Unless they're a bunch of murder hobos and simply kill her on the spot or something.
Hey Mr. Rage, didn't know you still browsed.
I don't think he does, or if he simply dropped the trip.
I spotted him, like, months ago, but that was like seeing a unicorn or some shit. Fairly certain they've gone for good, gone along with all the other oldfags of Veeky Forums. I don't know why, though, but it makes me sad.
Stop pretending you're not Mr. Rage. Nobody fondly remembers him. Stop forcing your dead meme upon us.
Why do you assume the beings concerned are intelligent?