People cannot play paladins correctly

> be DMing a 5e campaign
> friend decides to play paladin
> gets to point where they capture a warlock NPC
> paladin does not know he is a warlock, forgets to detect evil
> spares warlock's life
> warlock goes to nearby village and steals the crystal he wanted, slaughtering several villagers with his magic
> paladin goes to fight him, learns he has no powers
> he fell because he spared a warlock
> realizes this when he tries to smite evil
> warlock easily BTFOs him, and kills another party member before the PCs finish him off
> paladin player gets incredibly salty and refuses to make another character
> long argument about alignment in which I explain to him that lawful good means you cannot have mercy on evil
> gets into debate about calvinism and he tells me to fuck off and storms out of the house
> later find out that he named his paladin after his brother who died in a car crash 4 years earlier

Why is it so hard to play a paladin correctly? In old D&D you did detect evil to make sure you weren't sparing an evil person. It's not that fucking hard. That's the problem with RPGs these days, everyone wants everything spoonfed to them so they can actualize their autistic character concept. No one wants to put in effort to learn how to play the fucking game anymore.

What possesed you to post this?

>Why is it so hard to play a paladin according to my own autistic views of morality which are known only to me and never explained to the players because I expect them to read my mind.

ftfy

...

I'm hoping this is a troll post.

Detect Evil doesn't detect if somebody is evil in 5E. It is called Detect Good and Evil and doea the following.

>>For the duration, you know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within 30 feet of you, as well as where the creature is located. Similarly, you know if there is a place or object within 30 feet of you that has been magically consecrated or desecrated.


Unless the Warlock is literally a demon as well ( not even just a Tiefling but a literal fiend) then the detect spell wouldn't do anything.

Likewise a Paladin losing his powers because he gave mercy to a person he had no idea was your bad guy makes no sense at all. I think in terms of loss of powers for Paladins it needs to be done in stages and the player needs to be clear at each stage what the consequences are. You ideally needed to tell him BEFORE he made the decision the information he needed and if you want to houserule Detect Evil and expect Paladins to cast that lots then you need to tell your players that as well. Arbitrarily just deciding the paladin loses his powers because he made a mistake ( which as noted wasn't even that by the rules ) is really bad as is randomly springing it on him in an ahaha gotcha moment in combat is very much being 'that guy' as a DM. Paladins are meant to uphold their Oath to the best of their abilities at all times not be infallinle and perfect at all times.

You sound like you made a pretty bad series of decisions here and your friend seems right to leave. I'd apologise to him, give him his Paladin powers back and be clear now and in future what you expect and what he expects himself.

Your lucky most of everyone who posts here is retarded. Congrats on the premium bait.

>he fell because he spared a warlock

Paladins - classic Paladins, anyway - fall if they *knowingly* associate with or aid Evil. A paladin shouldn't fall just because he accidentally spared what turned out to be a powerful evil person, when the paladin didn't know that. Even if the Paladin had detected Evil on the warlock, he is under no obligation to kill the warlock. A paladin's code requires that he OPPOSE evil, which is not the same thing as killing it.

Although I'm going to call particular bullshit here because 5E paladins can't detect Evil anyway. Divine Sense only allows them to detect celestials, fiends, and undead, and the spell Detect Evil and Good similarly does not actually detect alignments.

> in which I explain to him that lawful good means you cannot have mercy on evil

The Book of Exalted Deeds rather strongly disagrees with you. For that matter I'm looking at the 5E PHB right now, and nowhere does it say anything that remotely resembles that about Lawful Good. In fact none of the nine alignments explicitly mention killing.

> In old D&D

But you weren't playing old D&D. You were playing 5th Edition, and thereby are expected to use more modern definitions of Good and Evil, as set down by the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness.

You literally wasted precious seconds typing that in a bait thread, I hope your ashamed

>my own autistic views of morality

Actually, no. Morality is absolute in this case because the Paladin is Lawful Good and thus must fight evil in any incarnation. If he lets an evil person go he is responsible for that evil person's actions. That applies to the modern day as well.

The paladin in this case deserved to fall.

>and the bait is set
Please include me in the mile long reply to the 100 angery anons.

OP I am in tears laughing, good shit dude

False dummy.

This isn't even good b8 m8. Luckily for you dnd spergs will still fall for it. (C with I did there????? :-)

>implying you didn't just waste precious seconds responding to my b8 m8

>But you weren't playing old D&D. You were playing 5th Edition, and thereby are expected to use more modern definitions of Good and Evil, as set down by the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness.

Actually, no, I was playing D&D that used real-world morality in which if you let an evil person commit crimes you are just as responsible as you would be if you left a person in a car crash to die by the side of the road.

* you're

> Your lucky most of everyone who posts here is retarded.

Apparently so.

Sempi noticed me

It doesn't count when I'm being condescending

Then you've got literally no idea how real world morality works.

You're proposing that the Paladin, with no means of knowing that the Warlock was evil, committed wrong by not randomly killing him? Remember, by the rules of the game he had no means of determining if the warlock was evil, or knowing what he was planning.

When the paladin was presented with a situation where in he saw someone was evil (irrelevant of the fact that he had previously spared him), he did exactly as his alignment and class demanded and stood in opposition to him.

>using real-world morality
Now I know you're using bait. Nice try. Here's your reply.

Either your just op or you are actually retarded, either way stop.

> he fell because he spared a warlock

This is the dumbest reason to fall. Your DM is a stupid asshole

What is it about Paladins that make them so fucking iconic and synonymous with D&D and RPGs in general? Like think about it, there always so much drama and you nearly always have at least one paladin per group and there's always so much drama

I mean I love Paladins but what's the deal?

>Inb4 another long winded almost southern preacher-like rant

This never actually happens, it's the oldest bait on this board.

Not sure why I even come here anymore. Shit like this thread is all the rage, the board is still plagued with 40k, quest board did not remove quests...nothing went as it should. Veeky Forums was a mistake. If this board gets shit done, the only thing left to do now is yourselves.

I stay for the weekend elder scrolls lore threads, that's it.

>real-world morality

In real-world morality you're not responsible for things you have no reasonable way of predicting or knowing. It's less like leaving a person in a car crash to die, and more like driving by a crashed car that fell off the side of the road and into a ditch, because you didn't see the car at all.

Well come on op don't be a lazy piece of shit and give us or inane rambling.

It happens, but the DMs rarely post about it so obviously. They start out slow and sound a bit more sympathetic but then more details come out and totally flip the story around.

THEN they start full on doing damage control.

OP is easy to recognise bait. No remorse for having killed off a friend's character that was named after his brother and calling him autistic for it? It's pretty weak.

A much more believable story would be to say "I had to kill off a paladin in my game" and then only expound on it when asked and poked and prodded.

Didn't you know? Read the second sticky, quests are banned and /qst/ is the only questholders.

I like how you tried to make it out that the player was the problem, but that by
>In old D&D you did detect evil to make sure you weren't sparing an evil person. It's not that fucking hard.
You had given away that you were running the system wrong, intentionally going against the game's design philosophy in at least 2 different ways, expecting a player to "detect evil" which doesn't even come with Paladin anymore, and making him fall without telling him, and based on your own autistic good-evil definitions instead of, you know, the actual paladin oaths listed in the book that the player can be expected to know.

I feel you.

>check the sticky

Wait what the fuck?

I guess miracles do exist.

Maybe things aren't so bad after all.

This thread is still garbage though.

>Your DM
OP is the DM. He slipped that in too.
> long argument about alignment in which I explain to him that lawful good means you cannot have mercy on evil
> gets into debate about calvinism and he tells me to fuck off and storms out of the house
Only the DM himself would have defended that stupid shit.

You're at fault here, you ass. One mistake doesn't constitute a fall.

> paladin does not know he is a warlock, forgets to detect evil
> paladin goes to fight him, learns he has no powers
> he fell because he spared a warlock

>quest board did not remove quests
I've noticed a massive improvement on that front personally.

Maybe players expect a little more from a roleplaying game than reducing all moral quandries to "cast detect evil" because that does not actually make for a very fun and interesting games and roleplaying?

(You)

Either way I'm disappointed that there isn't a page long rant expl ing why he's god and always right.

> pic related
> I type in all caps therefore I am right

No, faggot, a paladin falls because he does bad shit. If a police officer shoots random niggers for no reason, he gets kicked off the force. That isn't because he lost faith, it's because he's a psychopathic asshole like most cops.

>and more like driving by a crashed car that fell off the side of the road and into a ditch, because you didn't see the car at all.

Except in becoming a paladin you take the responsibility to root out evil. If you leave it behind, you neglected to stop an evil force. You are basically guilty by negligence.

It's like if you took on a job at a nuclear power plant then decided "fuck yeah I'm just going to start ignoring shit" Yeah you didn't intentionally cause a meltdown, but you ARE responsible because of the responsibility you took on.

Can't handle that?

Don't play a fucking paladin.

Full stop. Simple as that. So sick of people who pick a class with strong identity then choose to "play it my way" and get pissy when they get blown the fuck out by a Dungeon Master who doesn't tolerate cheating bullshit.

>I guess miracles do exist.

Don't count your chickens. Ever since that announcement assmad questfags have bombarded the board with shitposts.

There it is, I was worried you gave up.

The irony its abundant then, they tell them to leave because they shit up the board? They the proceed to do just that.

I guess it was justified.

That is a whole lotta wrong in one single post. I don't even know where to start, so I'm just going to settle for calling you stupid.

Stupid.

I bet he's gonna go for the canned "not an argument" response

>That is a whole lotta bait in one single post.

Fixed.

Oh ok the bait retort, another classic

>Full stop. Simple as that. So sick of people who pick a class with strong identity then choose to "play it my way" and get pissy when they get blown the fuck out by a Dungeon Master who doesn't tolerate cheating bullshit.

But there's three distinct paladin oaths in 5e that players can take, only one of which actually falls into the boundaries you're describing either way

Stop

nah

yes it does.

Paladin oaths in 5E
Oath of Devotion

The Oath of Devotion binds a paladin to the loftiest ideals of justice, virtue, and order. Sometimes called cavaliers, white knights, or holy warriors, these paladins meet the ideal of the knight in shining armor, acting with honor in pursuit of justice and the greater good. They hold themselves to the highest standards of conduct, and some, for better or worse, hold the rest of the world to the same standards.

Many who swear this oath are devoted to gods of law and good and use their gods’ tenets as the measure of their devotion. They hold angels—the perfect servants of good—as their ideals, and incorporate images of angelic wings into their helmets or coats of arms.

Tenets of Devotion: Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, paladins of this oath share these tenets.

-Honesty. Don’t lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise.

-Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise.

-Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.

-Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.

-Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.

Oath of the Ancients

The Oath of the Ancients is as old as the race of elves and the rituals of the druids. Sometimes called fey knights, green knights, or horned knights, paladins who swear this oath cast their lot with the side of the light in the cosmic struggle against darkness because they love the beautiful and life-giving things of the world, not necessarily because they believe in principles of honor, courage, and justice.

They adorn their armor and clothing with images of growing things—leaves, antlers, or flowers—to reflect their commitment to preserving life and light in the world.

Tenets of the Ancients: The tenets of the Oath of the Ancients have been preserved for uncounted centuries. This oath emphasizes the principles of good above any concerns of law or chaos. Its four central principles are simple.

-Kindle the Light. Through your acts of mercy, kindness, and forgiveness, kindle the light of hope in the world, beating back despair.

-Shelter the Light. Where there is good, beauty, love, and laughter in the world, stand against the wickedness that would swallow it.

-Where life flourishes, stand against the forces that would render it barren.

-Preserve Your Own Light. Delight in song and laughter, in beauty and art.

-If you allow the light to die in your own heart, you can’t preserve it in the world.

-Be the Light. Be a glorious beacon for all who live in despair.

-Let the light of your joy and courage shine forth in all your deeds.

Stop what? OP mentioned that he's playing 5e, so even if he's very dedicated to this concept he has in his head the players still aren't playing "the Paladin" wrong in its broadest strokes. At the very most, they're playing a Vengeance paladin wrong.

Oath of Vengeance

The Oath of Vengeance is a solemn commitment to punish those who have committed a grievous sin. When evil forces slaughter helpless villagers, when an entire people turns against the will of the gods, when a thieves’ guild grows too violent and powerful, when a dragon rampages through the countryside—at times like these, paladins arise and swear an Oath of Vengeance to set right that which has gone wrong. To these paladins— sometimes called avengers or dark knights—their own purity is not as important as delivering justice.

Tenets of Vengeance: The tenets of the Oath of Vengeance vary by paladin, but all the tenets revolve around punishing wrongdoers by any means necessary. Paladins who uphold these tenets are willing to sacrifice even their own righteousness to mete out justice upon those who do evil, so the paladins are often neutral or lawful neutral in alignment. The core principles of the tenets are brutally simple.

-Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil.

-I choose the greater evil.

-No Mercy for the Wicked. Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not.

-By Any Means Necessary. My qualms can’t get in the way of exterminating my foes.

-Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.

OP! Tell us which of these three oaths did your paladin player make, and then we'll tell you why you fucked up, again!

>But there's three distinct paladin oaths in 5e that players can take, only one of which actually falls into the boundaries you're describing either way

Yeah well that was the one he was playing. Also sick of this "paladin of freedom" and "paladin of tyranny" crap. What's next, a barbarian of order and a monk of chaos? Admittedly the latter sounds pretty cool, but paladins of freedom are processed bean-burrito-bullshit.

You got me

Tell us which of the three above posted oaths he swore.

Go on, we'll wait.

Stop

> I learned how to use Ctrl-V, the posts

All of these are the same shit.

> -Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.

Yeah he sure didn't do that by letting a warlock go to kill villagers.

> -Shelter the Light. Where there is good, beauty, love, and laughter in the world, stand against the wickedness that would swallow it.

Again, he did not stand against wickedness. he basically enabled it.

> -Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.

Holy shit, you are LITERALLY confirming my point.

user you have him a list, he's gonna just choose off that

no.

Okay, but which oath?

Read The player did nothing wrong by the rules of the system and only "fell" because you A) Changed the rules without him knowing and B) cheated your changed, made-up rules anyway

So you're still the bad guy, even in this made up story about a game that never happened you're sharing because you're mad about /qst/ or hate paladins or want to stir shit or all three.

Protip: NONE of the three choices lead a paladin to falling for fucking up once.

"A paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct, but even the most virtuous paladin is fallible. Sometimes the right path proves too demanding, sometimes a situation calls for the lesser of two evils, and sometimes the heat of emotion causes a paladin to transgress his or her oath.

A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a Cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order. The paladin might spend an all- night vigil in prayer as a sign of penitence, or undertake a fast or similar act of self-denial. After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh.

If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no sign of repentance, the consequences can be more serious. At the GM’s discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this class and adopt another.."

Obviously but he's gonna just use it as shitposting fuel, and that's bad.

no

Good stuff, actually made me laugh

And now we've proved you've not actually read 5E and therefore are full of shit for not actually knowing the rules at all! You're either a shit GM for not even bothering to read the book, or making shit up without knowing anything about the system.

Isn't that a happy convenience?

Yer a cunt

Epic post OP, but is there a character that could even possibly EVEN TOUCH Madara Uchiha? Let alone defeat him. And I'm not talking about Edo Tensei Uchiha Madara. I'm not talking about Gedou Rinne Tensei Uchiha Madara either. Hell, I'm not even talking about Juubi Jinchuuriki Gedou Rinne Tensei Uchiha Madara with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan and Rinnegan doujutsus (with the rikodou abilities and being capable of both Amateratsu and Tsukuyomi genjutsu), equipped with his Gunbai, a perfect Susano'o, control of the juubi and Gedou Mazou, with Hashirama Senju's DNA implanted in him so he has mokuton kekkei genkai and can perform yin yang release ninjutsu while being an expert in kenjutsu and taijutsu. I’m also not talking about Kono Yo no Kyuseishu Futarime no Rikudo Juubi Jinchuuriki Gedou Rinne Tensei Uchiha Madara with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan (which is capable of Enton Amaterasu, Izanagi, Izanami and the Tsyukuyomi Genjutsu), his two original Rinnegan (which grant him Chikushodo, Shurado, Tendo, Ningendo, Jigokudo, Gakido, Gedo, Bansho Ten’in, Chibaku Tensei, Shinra Tensei, Tengai Shinsei and Banbutsu Sozo) and a third Tomoe Rinnegan on his forehead, capable of using Katon, Futon, Raiton, Doton, Suiton, Mokuton, Ranton, Inton, Yoton and even Onmyoton Jutsu, equipped with his Gunbai(capable of using Uchihagaeshi) and a Shakujo because he is a master in kenjutsu and taijutsu, a perfect Susano’o (that can use Yasaka no Magatama ), control of both the Juubi and the Gedou Mazou, with Hashirama Senju’s DNA and face implanted on his chest, his four Rinbo Hengoku Clones guarding him and nine Gudodama floating behind him AFTER he absorbed Senjutsu from the First Hokage, entered Rikudo Senjutsu Mode, cast Mugen Tsukuyomi on everybody and used Shin: Jukai Kotan so he can use their Chakra while they are under Genjutsu. I'm definitely NOT Talking about sagemode sage of the six paths Juubi Jinchuuriki Gedou Rinne Tensei Super Saiyan 4

>making shit up without knowing anything about the system
Wasn't that obvious by the fourth line of the OP?

It was obvious by the fucking thread title.

It's almost like a scripted show by now, these threads.

I like to make it particularly obvious.

>Actually, no, I was playing D&D that used real-world morality in which if you let an evil person commit crimes you are just as responsible as you would be if you left a person in a car crash to die by the side of the road.

Real world morality in which he would need evidence to prove that the warlock is actively commuting crimes or sins since he was a lawful paladin.

Your logic means that if the warlock had managed to trick him using an illusion or something then the paladin would be responsible for not miraculously seeing through it and that is retarded.

I honestly think one of the biggest problems with the board these days are people who obviously never actually played a tabletop game trying to fabricate the next epic greentext to go on 1d4chan

I have a friend at my friday r20 group who regales us constantly with these tales of WACKY HILLARIOUS HI-JINKS that happened at his games, or some friend of a friend's games, and its so fucking obvious how fake these stories are but nobody has the heart to tell him to shut the fuck up because he thinks we're all impressed by his badass tales. Once we called him out for claiming he rolled a nat 20 at a key moment of a Shadowrun game (a d6 system, mind you) and he immediately backtracked with "WELL ACTUALLY IT WAS A HOMEBREW D20 MODERN GAME WITH THE SHADOWRUN SETTING" and desu, thats what Veeky Forums sounds like these days in half the threads where people tell their "cool greentext tales"

The guy insists the Paladin should've pinged Detect Evil on the Warlock, but I as has been stated Detect Evil doesn't work that way in 5e.

Besides, I know how people like OP work. That Warlock would've pinged as Neutral or even Good. This is an orc babby what do scenario and if the made-up Paladin in OP's made-up game chose to execute the Warlock he would've fallen for murdering an unarmed prisoner.

every greentext is made up you retard

Originality died ages ago, gotta be a bait master now

there are people here who actually play board games? lol what a bunch of losers

Bait?

confirmed for badwrongfun. paladins "fall" by losing belief in themselves in all the best roleplaying games. nothing is taken away, they loose it themselves

...

>That applies to the modern day as well
We all have a duty to stop you from ever DMing again.

Sorry that not a single person agrees with your shit choices

Stop GMing, your players will like you more that way.

nope, that's badwrongfun.

Paladins can't fall nearly that easily in 5E, looks like the problem is you.

>Actually, no, I was playing D&D that used real-world morality in which if you let an evil person commit crimes you are just as responsible as you would be if you left a person in a car crash to die by the side of the road.
So not at all? Nice, that's a level of subtlety I wasn't expecting in this kind of troll thread.

My houserules are objectively correct, peasant. Mind your tongue lest it be cut out.

This. Leaving someone stuck in a crashed car on the road is kind of shitty but it's a Neutral act at the worst if you're gonna try applying Alignments to it.

Now if you're say, an on-duty paramedic or police officer and you just rush by it so you can get off work on time, then that is Evil. Not just Evil, but Chaotic Evil because you're obligated by law to assist in that situation when you're on-duty.

my paladin is devoted to the ideal of chaotic neutral

get fucked nerd

>Being ignorant of some rando fucklechuck's alignment is the same as willfully ignoring your responsibilities
OP, I'm 90% sure this is bait, but even if it's not, the question is the same: How can you make that connection?
Also, thanks for your continued posting, always good for a giggle