Would playing a paladin be possible when you also execute the wrong doers after they have been through trial and found guilty ?
Would being a paladin also be possible if you are a vigilante and decided to execute someone in accordance to the law after the guilty has surrendered ?
Victim being evil of course.
This is for a future character of mine.
>>48255458
This being on the stereotypical lawful good paladin.
>>48255458
Here's a little trick I've learnt from three campaigns of playing as a Paladin.
Offer them ONE chance to surrender at the start of combat. Make it clear you will give no quarter otherwise.
Then you're not subject to having to deal with prisoners, because you can say: "I gave you a chance to surrender. Too late now, motherfucker."
Enemies never, ever surrender at the start. Doing this fucks over a GM who thinks he's being clever.
>>48255458
Pretty sure that is flat out oldschool paladin right there.
>Is he evil?
>Yes.
>Then killing him is entirely okay, don't worry about it. Even if he surrendered, he's evil, just fucking kill him if you want.
>>48255458
Yes, it's perfectly reasonable.
I've killed a tyrant who insisted on a trial that way. I dragged him out of his palace and asked the new government - the rebels - what to do with him. When they went "Death! DEATH!" and "Kill him more!" I had the right to chop off his head right there.
Also, if you face a moral dilemma and you don't trust the DM? Pray. Ask your God what you should do.
>>48255458
>"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct."
You are describing a completely ordinary paladin.
>>48255458
Actual historical paladins were basically christian marauders, knock yourself out.
>>48255471
One more thing to add is that concept of character is vengeance and justice.
A planning on a mix of Punisher, Judge Dred and Ned Stark sort of vigilante.
He is supposed to hate the hell out of evil. If you did something wrong and the law says you die for it, he will give you a sort of formal trial ("Anon, you are guilty of x and for that punishment is death") and then execute.
>>48255591
Yeah, textbook Paladin.
Most DMs just have a "Falling" fetish or are total idiots. It seems like most don't understand that Paladins are judge, jury, and executioners.
>>48255566
aaaaand then there's this fag.
>>48255497
>can't deal non-lethal
Remind me how you lost your LG gods favor?
>>48255497
>>48255665
Killing a criminal is in no way an evil act in D&D. A paladin is well within his right to judge and execute bandits, murderers and rapists.
>>48255557
>listening to Gygax
>>48255665
I already gave him a chance to surrender. He refused it. He gets the sword.
>>48255628
but muh crusade and vengeance
>>48255501
> Uh, paladin dude, are you sure? I mean he's pleading for his life right now...
> No, no, it's fine. Just lop his head off. Be my guest, I insist.
>>48255458
There's all sorts of different paladins.
There's Rooster Cogburn types, who give the option "I can kill you here and now, or I can take you to the judge, where he will hang you - but you *will* be given full burial rights" or "For you, I can put in a good word with the local judge, your crime isnt that bad. You'll still go to prison, but only for two years instead of five. You will learn to read and write there though".
Rooster also still just shoots plenty of people dead, because frontier justice is hard, and at the end of the day being naive will get you killed, and you dont do much good when you're dead.
>>48255960
I'm sure garborlax the raider, eater of small children is being completely earnest with his pleas and is not just begging for mercy to avoid righteous justice.
There is a time and a place for reformation, but a paladin's not the kind of individual to shy away from using the sword and letting his god sort things out.
Honestly, it's just like "those bad cops are shooting at our black kids who didn't do nothing" problem. If you attack a police officer, expect to get shot. If you attack a paladin, expect to be executed on the spot.
>>48256159
he was a good orc, he didnu nuffin wrong
-10 paladin points
What's a paladin?
>>48255501
>>48255960
>>48256139
I generally, in case of bandit gangs and the like, let the minor goons surrender (unless it is known that a specific minor goon done some serious shit) and take them in chains to the prison, but the main guy?
The guy that made the outfit, and who is de-facto the most vicious of the lot? He generally gets the head lopped off in plain view of the rest as a lesson.
>>48255608
>Most DMs just have a "Falling" fetish or are total idiots. It seems like most don't understand that Paladins are judge, jury, and executioners.
I think they jut consider paladins unflinching beacon of Justice as "boring" and try to "challenge" them.
>>48256184
Oh yes and if any start /running away/ rather than kneeling down in surrender, it's just fine to tell the archer of the party to shoot them.
They are running away to commit more murder and robbery. Preventing that is nothing but good.
>>48256173
A holy, exemplary warrior, paragon of justice and virtue.
Not the elite knight of Charlemagne, no
I think the right way to address this is to make paladins in your setting somehow connected to the judicial system of the kingdom. What's the penalty for killing, raping, and robbing people? If it's death, a paladin as an agent of the law is allowed to execute a person on the spot. If it's20 years in the cubes, I guess a palading has to keep a person in chains and get them there. HOWEVER you also have to consider a penalty for attacking a lawman, which is death in most cases. So if a bandit is pleading for his life after attacking the paladin, there's no wrong answer here. A paladin can either execute him on the spot for attacking an agent of law, or show mercy and get him to jail.
>>48255960
I've never understood this attitude. Why would the fact that he's pleading for his life make a difference? You don't stop being evil because you're afraid to die.
If you were planning on repenting, or wanted to ask for mercy, then you should have done that instead of trying to kill the person there to bring you to justice. By waiting until you're defeated and then asking for mercy, you've made it clear all you really care about is saving your own hide.
>>48255458
That is the textbook description of your job. The only issue is doing it with malice in your heart.
>>48255458
>Would playing a paladin be possible when you also execute the wrong doers after they have been through trial and found guilty ?
Yes? You basically do that by default.
>Would being a paladin also be possible if you are a vigilante and decided to execute someone in accordance to the law after the guilty has surrendered? Victim being evil of course.
Depends on the circumstances but Do-able. Paladins aren't (always) Cops.
>>48256139
>>48256184
>>48256805
Naah, I'm not trying to say that killing him would make paladin fall or some such. It just amuses me to think about the team that a paladin joined with people expecting him to be a goody two shoes guy, and now he's giving them cheerful lessons on how to best decapitate/ hang a guy, advising on bashing some dude's head and helping them coming to gripes with the fact that they're gonna kill a lot of people.
>>48256805
The purpose of punishment is to show one the error of their ways.
>>48256840
Honestly that's what I expect from paladins. There are few instances where I've seen someone not play a zealot when rolling paladin
>>48256845
No, that's just one purpose. Another purpose is to deter others by showing them what happens when they step out of line.
>>48256845
Citation needed. Even in most modern judicial systems the purpose of the punishment is to isolate the criminal from law-abiding people.
>>48256870
and yet they call it "rehabilitation"
>>48256870
>we found weed on his persons
>this dangerous criminal element must be isolated for the safety of the people
>>48255702
>>48255690
These mother fucker. Remember Gygax.
>>48255960
>>48256805
"Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment."
>>48256845
>>48256866
>>48256870
>>48256877
Law and Justice being about rehabilitating criminals is a fairly new concept tied to the enlightenment. Ancient justice was about preventing future crime, and punishing the criminal - thought was not given to the Criminals future, but to preventing clan wars and feuds, and to providing deterrence to criminal acts. This doesn't mean people were executed willy nilly, because death tends to propagate death, whether through revenge or example.
>>48256902
Laugh if you want but Weed was once regarded (very stupidly) as dangerous. It remains illegal due to inertia and economics.
>>48256877
>>48256902
>In the United States, criminal justice policy has been guided by the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which issued a ground-breaking report "The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society". This report made more than 200 recommendations as part of a comprehensive approach toward the prevention and fighting of crime. Some of those recommendations found their way into the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The Commission advocated a "systems" approach to criminal justice, with improved coordination among law enforcement, courts, and correctional agencies.[1] The President's Commission defined the criminal justice system as the means for society to "enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community."[2]
>The criminal justice system in England and Wales aims to "reduce crime by bringing more offences to justice, and to raise public confidence that the system is fair and will deliver for the law-abiding citizen."[3] In Canada, the criminal justice system aims to balance the goals of crime control and prevention, and justice (equity, fairness, protection of individual rights).[4] In Sweden, the overarching goal for the criminal justice system is to reduce crime and increase the security of the people.[3] In China, the justice system aims to keep the society function well and protect every person's right. Overall, criminal justice plays a huge role throughout society as a whole in any place.
I dunno about your fantasy land, but this is what modern judicial systems are all about. And we're talking pseudo-medieval settings with actual kings and shit.
>>48256902
That's a case of making an example of people who don't follow the rules, to discourage others from doing the same.
Making people unemployable to create repeat customers for prisons is another purpose relevant to for profit prisons.
>>48256911
>Weed was once regarded (very stupidly) as dangerous
Are you saying the film Reefer Madness lied to me? I shocked! Shocked and appalled!
>>48256922
If they really want to protect citizens from crime, they should just kill criminals instead of letting them go so they can do it again
>>48256243
Do not that paladins are upholders or just and good laws. If the law gives free reign to evil men then it's not a good or just law and the paladin is under no obligation to allow murderers and bandits to go free because of it.
That would be the action of a Lawful Neutral character, who believes that following and upholding the law is good in and of itself regardless of wether or not the law is just.
If he commited a severe crime:
Can you escort him to a prision without endangering the lives of your party?
The city can afford to feed a prisioner till his rehabilitation?
If any anwser is no you're free to execute him.
>>48255458
Paladins gain smite at level 1, and lay on hands at level 2 ... it's pretty obvious where their priorities lie.
Everything you've described sounds like every paladin around.
>>48256911
>Law and Justice being about rehabilitating criminals is a fairly new concept tied to the enlightenment. Ancient justice was about preventing future crime, and punishing the criminal - thought was not given to the Criminals future, but to preventing clan wars and feuds, and to providing deterrence to criminal acts. This doesn't mean people were executed willy nilly, because death tends to propagate death, whether through revenge or example.
Mind you, a lot of D&D settings have gods with more modern viewpoints and in many cases actual gods of redemption.
So a lot of it really comes down to 'Where do they draw their own personal view of their role?'
I'm going to be joining a campaign this weekend and decided to roll a paladin. My plan for if random brigade end up surrendering to us is that I'll heat up my holy symbol (a small metal symbol on a necklace) and use it to brand their forehead so everyone down the line can see that they're a criminal. Is this too stupid/edgy?
>>48257043
Why not just kill them?
>>48257043
Sounds like "Inglorious Bastards"
>>48257043
Depends on their crime, your god/ideaology, and the setting.
Otherwise, branding was fairly common.
>>48255458
>I am a Paladin. If mercy was still an option, then they would not have sent me.
>>48255458
Gygax said so. So yes.
>>48257012
Normal prisoners won't be imprisoned for their crimes in a pre-modern society anyway.
Prisons are for holding people until trial or holding rich prisoners awaiting ransom. Most punishments will be physical or financial.
The paladin wouldn't fall but executioners have always had a filthy image for dealing so closely with the dead and paladins are meant to be symbols of civilization and virtue.
>>48255458
Depends on the setting. In my ones, while being Champions of Good and all that shit, paladins are basically Inquisitors - they're judge, jury and executioner. So yes, go nuts.
>>48257043
Wouldn't branding them with your holy symbol just make them look super pious?
Branding was useful back in the day because they knew A meant adultery and the like. You could heat a knife up and burn (or just carve) brigand into their forehead if there's no local tradition.
>>48257034
The big problem with rehabilitation is that it requires a lot of time, effort, and resources. You have to have someone dedicated to working with these people to rehabilitate them, as well as a place to house them, and then you have to feed them, clothe them, clean up after them, and so on.
Modern prisons are a result of having those kinds of resources available en masse - we can afford to dedicate food, clothing, and shelter to people who are acting in detriment to society in the hopes that we can rehabilitate them. In a medieval agrarian society, you wouldn't have that. Which is why they didn't have prisons the way we know them - they had jails for holding prisoners until punishment, and prisons for holding small numbers of valuable prisoners.
It's kind of ironic - saying "we shouldn't execute prisoners, we should just rehabilitate" is basically the definition of privilege.
>>48257062
My character is kind of a sherrif/cowboy themed Paladin, so it seemed appropriate. See the posts about Rooster Coburn earlier in the thread.
>>48257100
Yeah, my major concern is that it might slow stuff down. Like I'd probably need to ask a party member to hold the bad guy down and also need to start a fire and wait until it's hot enough for branding.
>>48257244
I'm hoping it starts a trend and gains some brand recognition (dumb pun) to the point where people recognize what it means on sight.
>>48257257
create food and water
>>48257291
Use it for particularly bad criminals. Honestly how many fuckers are you sparing regularly like that?
>>48257313
You should probably just kill the really bad ones. Ordinary brigands won't end the world if you let them go.
>>48257302
>wizards
>giving a fuck about the regular population
create food and water is how they stay holed up in towers studying forever
>>48257302
Again, limited resources. Create food and water is a third level spell, which is probably about the limits of what your town cleric can do. It also only feeds fifteen prisoners per day, so you'd need one third level spell per fifteen prisoners, and most of them only have one or two spell slots to cast them. Those slots are also competing with things like Revivify or Remove Disease. So why waste your cleric's power on feeding criminals per instead of quelling epidemics or saving the during?
>>48255696
>not listening to gygax resulted in 3.0 and on
The game is not meant to hold your hand. Law and Good does not mean flowers and hugs, it means create order and try to make the world a better place. Executing criminals does this.
>>48255458
What kind of question is that? Of coure it's ok for paladins to kill evil beings/people, and, in your case, it was proven that they are guilty. So what's the problem?
>>48257313
I haven't joined the game yet, so this is just an idea I'm throwing around if we run into one of those hypotheticals in the thread where the brigands start shedding crocodile tears and begging for mercy after its clear their ass is whupped.
For the really bad criminals, my plan is to hang 'em high.
>>48257302
You want to waste the talents of rare and exceptional individuals on supporting criminals?
>>48257473
individuals that spend their time as murderhobos. You'll eliminate two problems at once
>>48257416
>For the really bad criminals, my plan is to hang 'em high.
Doing the gods work.
Find out that screencap of Gygax talking about LG and keep it handy just in case of GM throwing a fit. (Printout if meatspace game)
>>48257499
Murderhobos aren't going to be sitting in prisons as vending machines.
>>48257622
Please show me. I are pleb...
>>48257637
You can let them abuse prisoners. They would've abused them out in the wild anyway
>>48256073
>"Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves. They have no place in determining general alignment, albeit justice tempered by mercy is a NG manifestation, whilst well-considered benevolence is generally a mark of Good." -Gary Gygax 2005
>>48255458
>Would playing a paladin be possible when you also execute the wrong doers after they have been through trial and found guilty ?
This implies he has submitted to the lawful authorities. If the lawful authorities permit death as a valid form of punishment, there is nothing wrong with paladin killing him.
>Would being a paladin also be possible if you are a vigilante and decided to execute someone in accordance to the law after the guilty has surrendered ? Victim being evil of course.
This statement appears contradictory since if executing someone "in accordance with the law" implies that what he is doing is lawful and therefore he is not a vigilante.
If you mean something like "kill him before he faces trial for something that would have been punishable by death if tried by law" then I assume there are many valid courses of action. Either the pally ensures that the wrongdoer is tried under law OR he kills him once he surrenders. While the D&D interpretation of paladin as a le epic judge dredd xDxD that retards here seem to like is stupid as shit, it is nonetheless viable and conforms to the way Gygax described LG.
Tl;Dr - Alignments are retarded, /tg/-made paladin is a shit concept
>>48257034
>redemption
Has nothing to do with the law. They would pray for the soul of condemned in ye olden days because they legitimately hoped that their soul would be redeemed and their sins would be forgiven.
>>48257664
I thiink I saw it in a recent thread, lemme check up...
There it is
http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/48192411/#48215217
>>48215217
>>48257687
Then what's the point? Now you're not rehabilitating anyone, you've just turned your prisons into murderhobo amusement parks, and they already had those. They're called "dungeons."
>>48257499
So without 'murderhobos' fighting bandits and monsters trade just got a lot harder because the roads are less safe. Well done genius.
In the meanwhile scumbags who should have just been executed or fined now get to live on free food that could go to people who actually need/deserve it. There is a reason they used to make prisoners pay for their own food before it was super easy to feed the whole population.
>>48257725
And what is 'stupid as shit' about executing violent criminals in a pre-modern society without prisons?
No, if you kill anyone you lose your powers.
>>48257898
Feeling you have a moral right to do it
>>48257997
That sounds like a very fun class to play.
>>48257999
Why wouldn't they feel it's their moral right to smite evil and punish the wicked.
That's pretty much what fantasy paladins are centered around. They're empowered by their god for that entire purpose.
>it's another paladin morality argument thread that goes nowhere
Ignoring the iRL moral quandaries of whether execution is just or not, it's worth noting that most Paladins are going to exist in a setting where there isn't a justice system that can rehabilitate offenders. It's either going to throw them in a cell to rot for an indeterminate amount of time or it's going to execute them. Neither is going to make for model citizens coming out, it's going to make for worse criminals and skeletons for a necromancer or something.
It might be cool as a paladin to try to create such a justice system, one where prisoners can be punished fairly and rehabilitated so that they come out the other end as better people, whether in a genuinely positive way or a grimdark way (i.e. brainwashing or 'if you break the law your head will explode' or something).
The issue then becomes how the fuck you deal with things that really can't be rehabilitated (at least not without some kind of exceptional effort, like that one Illithid from BoED which is probably really shaky canon given certain details) but where execution is, for whatever reason, not an option or just not desired. Maybe create some kind of version of the Dresden Files' Demonreach with the help of your party/church/whatever? Might be cool.
>>48258087
Maybe because games with rules like "All members of class X must be this very specific way or have their character borked" are retarded.
Bump for the bump god
>>48257999
Does that bother you? That someone could actually objectively know they were morally correct and justified?
Why does a judge have any more moral right to have someone executed than a divine warrior? And no, you cannot imprison them. Prisons don't exist unless you are a rich prisoner awaiting ransom.
So either you are arguing they should be let free which is insane or you think mutilating them to the point they cannot hurt others is better.
>>48255591
>Ned Stark sort of vigilante
Ned Stark was the closest realistic depiction of a Paladin in the books. A criminal had been granted a previous mercy and sent to the Wall in lieu of punishment. He was found fleeing it and so forfieted his life.
>>48260822
So was Jamie Lanninster.
>>48261174
His dilemma was the best example of when alignments conflict.
>Lawful good character needs to protect the king but the same king is more and more insane and wants to burn the entire capital with him.
>needs to choose either to save everyone but do the dishonorable thing of killing your king or to follow orders and damn everyone to a fiery death.
>>48256184
Fucking this.
It pisses me off that movies do the opposite: slaughter mooks by the boatload but can't kill the mastermind "because you will become like him".
>>48261361
>His dilemma was the best example of when alignments conflict.
I don't think it was a conflict, he perfectly followed his internal morality. He ended an unjust and evil king who burned people alive in his armor, who actively got aroused by the act, who hid witches fire all over the city to burn it to the ground.
He killed him, saved the city and all it's people. It is a fine example of accepting damnation to do good.
