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Paladins

Alright so I'm wanting to try and clear this up. For a Paladin: It's stated they cannot ever knowingly and willfully commit an evil act. If they do, they are no longer Lawful Good and lose all paladin class abilities/spells. Does this mean that if they learn it was an evil act AFTER the fact they automatically lose their paladin shit? Or no?
It depends on GM ruling ultimately. I'd say you'd have to attempt to reconcile/fix/atone for the actions, but you wouldn't immediately lose your powers unless you just go "Well, guess that sucks for them guys".
I guess it would depend on the situation and the DM. How I rule those situations in my game: the gods know it was an evil act, so he loses his abilities as soon as the act is committed. Evil isn't relative to the paladin's beliefs, it is relative to the paladin's god's beliefs. I also allow paladins to go on quests to make up for ill deeds and possibly get their powers re-granted. Curious: in your scenario, how would a paladin NOT know it was an evil act?
Well there's no real scenario for this particular question. This came up due to something that came up during a campaign... thing? It wasn't really during the campaign. It was more that: In 3.5e Ebberon there's this thing called "The Undying Court" who are undead elves fueled by positive energy. We got into a debate on whether or not Turn Undead would work on them (Which technically the only answer I got was "'cause the dm says so" which I view as a very bad way to decide things). I then said "Well my Paladin wouldn't even have a reason to attack them unless they attacked me first" and so I said that if they attacked a Lawful Good character without ANY provocation at all and just for the hell of it then they wouldn't be considered "Good" anymore. Then I gave the scenario that if a Paladin walked into a town and killed everyone there 'cause he felt like it then he would no longer be considered "Lawful Good" because he had no actual reason to do it. Using this, I told them that anyone who's alignment is "Good" cannot just attack someone without provocation or they'd no longer be considered "Good" and thus this "Undying Court" couldn't be fueled by positive energy anymore.
There are plenty of situations which are borderline or depend on perspective (or possibly hidden knowledge). These generally come down to what the GM and/or group finds reasonable. Maybe you say that the god in question cares more about what's in someone's heart than the ultimate result of their actions; or maybe you decide that the god only sees things in absolute terms and doesn't care about motivation. So if a paladin were to free an imprisoned evil lich who was using powerful illusion magic to seem like an innocent child, that's probably an evil act in the absolute sense, but a god who cares about motivations would realize that the paladin thought he was freeing an innocent child and might consider it a good act instead. If the paladin is devastated when he finds out what he did, then such a god would probably say that's okay and not cut him off; if he just shrugs and says "oh well, it seemed right at the time" then a god might be more inclined to say that he's not such a paragon of good afterall. Incidentally, if I were the GM ruling on Turn Undead vs. the Undying Court, I'd say that undead fueled by positive energy rather than negative energy would be rebuked by paladins and clerics channeling positive energy, and turned by clerics channeling negative energy (i.e. the opposite of traditional undead fueled by negative energy). But unless the Undying Court are paladin-esque (namely, they get their power directly from a parton deity), I'd think that their alignment wouldn't matter at all; they could commit evil acts and even be evil without losing their animation, just like normal undead can commit good acts and even be good.
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Pat S.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
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Edited 1417750989
wut? how is it off topic?