Wouldn't the Paladins who taught know the truth since they didn't Fall themselves? They'd certainly know at least the minimum bounds on their limits of their freedom.

For example, Hoar and vengeance - if I go and do exactly wat my god tells me to do, I fall, for no reason. Surely another paladin would have noticed this trend at some point in the past?



I agree with that.

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I've proven in other threads that Paladins in the name of good can get away with being the most evil characters you'll ever meet. The most evil characters I've ever met were Paladins, simply because they see white, they are always right and they've got the power of the class to back their claim.

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Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

You're not going to find any concrete Yes or No answer, you realize.

There are no "Tolerance" rolls for gods. There are no "Leniency" skill ranks for deities. The gods (read MOST) don't just come down from their marble palaces every holy day, stand infront of their whole congregation and say "Hear ye, Hear ye, these are all the things in Yes or No form that I think about Everything, Everyone, and Every Situation." It just doesn't happen like that.

So no, never will your paladin be 100% sure on the "iffy" issues that may cause them to fall. Wisdom and experience will help them out tremedously, but unless you're a chosen and in communion with your patron 24/7, the "judgement calls" are still gonna be "judgement calls." Why? Because not even the gods know there every opinion on every situation before it actually happens. As I've tried to say before, and I believe I say this with the backing of goodly number of people who've DMed(pnp or otherwise), gods are not completely static. They may be extremely slow to change, maybe even to the point where they look motionless to mortals, but they do change, most of the time. especially the Faerunian pantheon, the gods with mostly human worshipers.

The gods are "divine beings". They are -beings-, not -things-, in FR. Gods have gotten angry. Gods have held pointless grudges against other gods, of relatively the same align.

The reason a paladin will fall is up completely to the god. And by "god", I mean the DM that is currently interpriting your patron's ethos right then and there. You're at there whim. Just like your paladin is at the whim of the god. Deal with it. Hell, if it really comes down to it, before you do something that seems iffy, send a DM a tell, maybe describing your character's thought process. I don't expect you to get a reply on anything, nor do I expect that tell to keep your pally from falling if they follow through with the action for whatever reason. But maybe, just maybe, if the DM knows -why- you did something, being as privy as a god to your PC's prayers, maybe a full fall will not be the penalty. Maybe a "divine chastisement" instead. Maybe on a really hard, nail-bitter issue, ask the DM if you can roll Wisdom, to gain "insight" on what your god would most likely think about the situation. You never know. And you'll never know. Part of the thrill and risk of playing a paladin is being so close to your god, and having risks if you do something to upset that closeness, just like in a relationship.

No one is ever going to tell you "Just don't do this, this, and this, and your paladin will never, ever fall." Sorry. Half the reason is because that's taking the overall point and challenge out of the class. The other half is because no one is able to give you an infallable guide to staying in your god's good favor. It's like saying "never do anything dangerous, and you'll never get hurt." It just doesn't work like that. You can keep piling on the "What If's", and the answer will change from Yes to No a thousand times.

Paladin it a very tempormental class, but it's not like it doesn't get rewarded for it. The constant challenge to mold imperfect into perfect is something that kept philosophers busy for the history of mankind, so of course it keeps some character in a game constantly busy as well. It's one of the many reason I'm a fan of the class... when done correctly.

QFE because this is something that I have seen as well. Not always mind you, but I've seen paladins slaughter people without so much as asking them to repent or change their ways.

They would most certainly package it as the truth, whether it is the absolute truth or not.



You'll never Fall for no reason.

For no 'apparent' reason, then. If a god will Fall you for following his dogma, but will leave you as a Paladin for disobeying some of it for some higher 'lawful good'ness, that simply doesn't make sense.

Edit:
Paladin A is the person teaching you. He is a Paladin of your god who has never Fallen (otherwise he wouldn't be teaching you). He would thus know whether to give over to the dogma entirely, or whether said LGness must be preserved, and would teach you so you don't Fall.
Same with Paladin B, C and so on.

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You may Fall for no apparent reason. If the reason is not apparent, it is your personal failing because you lack the intuition to see what the true cause of the Falling was. That's on you. Or, you can blame someone else - Paladin A, for example, who may or may not have taught you everything you needed to know.

Saying you've proven anything is one of the most intellectually-masturbating things I've heard in a while. Your argument is based on moral relativity, which is at its core a self-defeating theory.

Paladins on Amia are often protrayed, in my opinion, terribly - a Paladin is a bastion of righteousness, and a bastion of righteousness inarguably follows a certain code of over-arching moral law. What is "Good" in DnD - and yes, Dungeons and Dragons, not reality (since we're not playing Paladins in real life) - is generally defined as simply "putting the needs of others before one's self". That is this universe's over-arching moral law: goodness equates selflessness. That being said, the fact that all Paladins are Lawful Good (whether they have tendencies towards anything else) must in fact behave in such a way where they follow a certain code (See: Deity Specifics) and, as well, put the needs of others before their own; in this way they are both lawful and good.

That's it.

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I believe Galenson means he's shown. The Paladins themselves have proven.

I've played paladins like that in he past (she ended up becoming a BG in the end ... PnP campaign).
But my question still stands: Does the average Paladin know about the LG aspect of their class?

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How's about this. You will never fall for doing what your god says is in their dogma. You -may- fall for doing something you thought was in the will of the deities dogma, but really isn't. There is no Universal Lawful Good, for a paladin. Only what their god and god alones deems as both Lawful and Good for them. Again, you're not gonna fall because you didn't follow some one-size-fits-all paladin code, you may fall because you broke a part of your god's dogma that -may have overlapped- with that code you get in a lil book at character creation.

And I daresay that just because one paladin has never fallen, it doesn't mean he can tell another paladin exactly what to do and never fall. It just means that Paladin A never did anything in his happenings that caused a Fall.

But even then, you'd be better asking a paladin who HAS fallen, so he could tell your paladin what -not- to do. And even sometimes, I'd go as far as to say that just because a god let one paladin get away with something once, it doesn't mean he'll let it slide for another. Paladin A could have done someting against the dogma wrong not even knowing it, and the god may say "Well, they intended to do my work, but faulted in ignorance." That's a big difference than Paladin A telling another paladin "the ropes" so to speak, then going out at doing the same because they think they'll slide too. It's the whole Sin-done-in-Ignorance vs Sin-done-in-Knowledge, thing.

Either way, there are no absolutes with the "playing the paladin" game. I'm not sure how many different ways I can say it, but No, unless your paladin's patron comes down and holds thier hand throughout all thier life, they're never gonna know for sure. The wiser and more experienced they become, the better idea they have, but never will they know for 100%. That's where "faith" and "conviction" come in. All divine classes are inspired, but afaic, only Chosen know.

Edit: So to answer your question, Yurrel, no. The whole concept of alignments is pretty much OoC knowledge to them. All they know is what their god says is "Law", what their god says is "Good", and that they are to follow both of the things the god classifies as such.

In general, yes. Empirically/definitively, no.

Thanks, that's what I was after, I guess I was just communicating badly.

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