Code of Ethics

[Sain]

My favorite RPG class of all times is the Paladen, the divine crusader of justice, but I find it difficult to choose the more noble of two paths,Shadow-Thieves/Bodhi, both evil. Sanguine City, everyones evil. Is their any type of code that a Paladen goes by?

[galraen]

That is one of the design faults in BG2, it didn't seem to occur to the designers that anyone would want to play a Paladin, or any good or lawful alignment. I guess all the designers were chaotic or evil!:laugh: If role-played properly I guess a Monk would have problems too unless he/she was LE.

There is a mod that allows a noble route, do a search on Saerileth for more info.

[Sain]

Major design flaws, help king Ixiloco or prince villitny, I decided to just slaughter the entire city in the name of Torm(not really, but it has a nice ring to it), but it got my "Your a bad boy for that" feeling. Would rescuing Viconia be the LG thing, as she is evil? And what about the silver sword. Lawful would be the give up your piece, Good, would be to keep it from the gith.

P.S. I am using Sarileth, which is the only way that the roleplay element wasn't ruined for me, but that dragon was a pain.

[galraen]

In the Sahuagin Citiy I guess the lawful thing to do is to honour your pledge to the King and Kill the Prince, the Prince after all is a criminal by the Sahuagin's rules. Then of course I guess you couldn't leave an evil king in charge to continue to moles honest mariners, so he'd have to go as well.

As for Vici, well the folks about to burn her do seem to be vigilantes, so I guess it's lawful to disperse the mob, but then I suppose she should be handed over to the authorities to deal with. Or I suppose you could take her into the party, enter the prison, move her into a cell and remove her from the party with the instructions to stay there and not go to the cemetary. I'm not sure if you can tell her to stay in place though, I know you can with Minsc, at least in the Asylum, because I left him locked up there once, the perfect place for him IMHO.

[Edar Macilrille]

Nooo not my beloved Minsc!!! Boo will find you and tear your eyes out.


Anyway you overlook one thing guys, The Sahaugin are evil yes, but they are barely holding their own against The Bane of The Underdark, the Drow, and someone else (I think Illithid even worse than Drow). If you take out the Sahaugin without taking out the Drow and Illithid (which you do, but mere enclaves), these two evil races will prosper even more and grow even stronger.

I faced the same dilemma (though as Kensai/Mage Thief- Jægersoldat I call that combo;-) ), but let Prince Villy take over with the reasoning that someone needs to keep the Drow and Illithid in check, let those evil fiends continue to slaughter each other in a balanced dance macabre where none can get the upper hand.

[Celacena]

going back to the OP

law enforcement officers go "undercover" which is what your character is doing to gain the thieves aid - in fact you do not have to do the master thief Maevar quest to get help from Linval. you do need to go and get attacked first by shadow thieves then by vampires.

with the fishy people - they are waylaying travellers, so you can decide to clear them out OR you can pick-pocket the king for the treasury key, help yourself to the magic rope and (I am not sure on this point) use the rope to get to Underdark.

there are many compromises in the game that a Paladin may not be comfortable with IMO - also - many missions have the enemies attack without discussion, even when they are 'sophisticated'. in WK and ToB they had the chance to remove some of the auto-attack issues and did.

[Tate]

I think that to further the goal of rescuing Imoen, a temporary alliance with the Shadow Thieves isn't against a paladin's code of ethics. The duties you are assigned to do all have to do with eradicating the vampires, an evil species, so your actions are justified.

[C-K'R[PhoEniX]]

I think that to further the goal of rescuing Imoen, a temporary alliance with the Shadow Thieves isn't against a paladin's code of ethics. The duties you are assigned to do all have to do with eradicating the vampires, an evil species, so your actions are justified.

While that does hold true as the job description for a paladin, you aren't exactly taking into account the alignment itself, which is lawful good. If anyone should adhere to the law and keep doing good deeds at it, it's this class. If there isn't a simple way to act according to this in a situation, paladins ought to make one, lest it be a much more inconvenient one. Celacena's explanation about going undercover makes sense, but making an alliance with the thieves guild, even temporary, without exposing them and ultimately picking their organization apart would leave a stain on a paladin's honor and moral code. After all, they shouldn't be passive when the crime is right in front of their face.

[galraen]

I think that to further the goal of rescuing Imoen, a temporary alliance with the Shadow Thieves isn't against a paladin's code of ethics. The duties you are assigned to do all have to do with eradicating the vampires, an evil species, so your actions are justified.

Except of course as a Paladin or a Monk should you be even trying to 'rescue' Imoen, she broke the law after all, and as the saying goes,'if you can't do the time, don't do the crime!'. Also remember that ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law. As far as a Lawful character is concerned surely she only got her just deserts, and they shouldn't be even contemplating breaking the law to help a felon escape from their sentence?

[fable]

A paladin of which god? I would think that the moral slant of the god in question which determine what their paladin would in turn find morally acceptable.

And remember, any god that insists that there are hard in fast rules in all situations to which people can be applied, isn't lawful good--it's lawful eeeevil.

[galraen]

A paladin of which god? I would think that the moral slant of the god in question which determine what their paladin would in turn find morally acceptable.

And remember, any god that insists that there are hard in fast rules in all situations to which people can be applied, isn't lawful good--it's lawful eeeevil.

Tell that to the Pope!

The moral slant of the God has to be Lawful Good of course*, for a Monk then obviously it could be LN or LE.

I don't think there's anyway around it for a Paladin, the law is the law in the instance we're talking about, she broke it and received the statory punishment, at least unlike the PC she didn't get a death sentence passed on her, she got off quite lightly really.

* Yes, I know Helm's LN, obviously no true Paladin would worship a fence sitter like him.

[Sain]

Well, since I would worship Torm, I would have to save her, as it is my duty as a friend

[fable]

The moral slant of the God has to be Lawful Good of course*,[/qutoe]

No, I wrote "the moral slant of the god." Not "the stupid thumbnail good/evil lawful/chaotic BS that tells us nothing." I know, English doesn't get that across well.

For example, if an impatient god was especially concerned about children, then presumably an incident which made the paladin select between helping a caravan under attack by a small army of roving bandits and a slavery racket that specialized in abducting kids in a nearby town might require B, not A. The choice could be made much more dramatic if both instances were timed. This is your best shot, right now, at capturing the bandits who have been plaguing the travel routes for the last couple of years. There's not likely to be another shot chance like this. But if you take it, another 20 or so children will definitely be moved into ships and sold off into slavery.

I don't think there's anyway around it for a Paladin, the law is the law in the instance we're talking about, she broke it and received the statory punishment, at least unlike the PC she didn't get a death sentence passed on her, she got off quite lightly really.

Let's look at the case of Viconia joining a party with the PC as a paladin of...well, Helm, perhaps. Is the response a simple one, cut and dried?

By no means. The paladin might:

a) Agree to let Viconia in, the better to watch her actions carefully. Keep your friends close, as the saying has it, and your enemies closer.

b) Agree to let Viconia in, because she's evil. It would be easier to track her presence while going to the authorities immediately in this fashion, instead of chasing her away--and then how could you find her, in order to bring her to the Order's inquisitor general for judgment?

c) Agree to let Viconia in, because she may be open to conversion. It has happened before, it might happen again. And if the Bhaalspawn herself is not evil, despite containing the essence of her evil sire, how then one is simply raised in an evil environment?

d) Agree to let Viconia in, because she would be helpful. There are times when the greater good may demand momentary sacrifices, and even evils may have their place in achieving it. Temporarily. She can be forced out at a later time. Or brought to the attention of those who will take her and give her the death she deserves.

e) Argue that Viconia should be refused entrance to your party. She's evil, irredeemable. The drow worship dark gods, to whom the Watcher is an implacable foe.

f) Argue that Viconia should be refused entrance to your party. While she may be useful to the party in general, she could bring down its morale. And she certainly will interfere with your attempts to heal and direct the party subtly, morally, in the proper direction.

g) Argue that Viconia should be refused entrance to your party. There is a war going on between the elves and the drow. It is likely that your party will become embroiled in this, since matters point to the elves' involvement with Irenicus and Bodhi. Having Viconia on hand will send the wrong signal to potential allies.

...I could go on. My point is simply that there are any number of possible reactions from a framework of roleplaying. A paladin is a mold; you can fill it however you want. It doesn't need to be a stereotype. It can even be a complex character who faces problematic choices based on holding competing views about several major issues.

EDIT: These are also a matter of reactions to events. Ideally, the reaction should be the result of the in-depth character you created, whose family, training, character, culture, etc, affects how they view questions that arise on a daily basis, as well in the longterm. An elderly paladin known for his healing skills and potionmaking will arguably have a different perspective to bring to the question of Viconia's presence in a party than a middle-aged combat instructor, or a weak, elderly theologist, strong in spirit, or a bitter, arrogant young paladin who has seen his family destroyed by Calam****e rivals. The figure that makes their mind up is a person, not a paperdoll paladin stereotype.

[galraen]

Well if a character worships Helm, then obviously he/she couldn't be a Paladin. How could a Paladin worship a god who views evil as being just as accepatable as good?

As to reacting to the situation, then a Paladin would endeavour to stick as close to the moral code of her/his god as they could. If a follower of Torm, and through him Tyr, then there is a conflict obviouslym, assuming Imoen was in fact a friend. Should the Paladin choose loyalty to her/his friend or loyalty to the law. Simple answer would be to consult the head of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart of course and abide by his decision.

As to the bandits or the salvers, both answers are right and both are wrong, it would be up to Johnny on the spot to decide which was the priority, and pray his/her superiors agreed with the decision.



In the case of Vici, then the Paladin has to decide it the burning is being carried out by the authorities or vigilantes, to be frank the presence of the guards and the location strongly indicate that it's an authorised, legal excecution, the Paladin should not interfere. If the Paladin decides however that it's unauthorised vigilante action and steps in,then he/she should obviousloy hand her over to either the temporal authorities or the Radiant Heart.

The decision had the Paladin rescued her in BG1 however is far more complex.

These are also a matter of reactions to events. Ideally, the reaction should be the result of the in-depth character you created, whose family, training, character, culture, etc, affects how they view questions that arise on a daily basis, as well in the longterm.

Obviously you're generalising here, not refering to the Bhaal Spawn, as we know who his/her family is, that (if a Paladin) had no training, and was brought up in a cloistered bookish culture where everyone seems to have been fatalists.

There are some constants that in general we should be able to assume.

1) The Paladin would have been taken away from his/her family at a very early age, so we can pretty much discount that influence in this regard.

2) The training would have been strict with heavy emphasis on loyalty to the order and unhesitant obedience to the law and authority.

3) The culture we know somewhat, and it's brutal in the extreme, the culture the Paladin would have been raised in would have an awful lot more in common with medieval Europe, inquisition and all, than it would with the cultures you and I were brought up in Fable. Death and enslavement of children is horrific to us, but to a Paladin in the Forgotten Realms, an every day occurence and a fact of life. Indeed if child slavery was legal then the Paladin would be duty bound to prevent anyone form interfering with the slavers.

[fable]

Well if a character worships Helm, then obviously he/she couldn't be a Paladin. How could a Paladin worship a god who views evil as being just as accepatable as good?

What's the latest, greatest definition of a paladin, and who made it?

Galraen, concerning the rest of your post, I t really don't want to argue with you about the matter. You believe you know exactly how a paladin must be played; to me, the behavior you recommend seems schematic, without taking into account the nuances of situation or the rolelplaying dynamic. Best we leave it there, and agree to differ.

[galraen]

In first and second edition AD&D Fable, a Paladin must be Lawful Good, end of story.

[fable]

In first and second edition AD&D Fable, a Paladin must be Lawful Good, end of story.

End of story? You mean if people are playing by first and second edition rules, correct? But they're not allowed to play by any others? It seems curious, since there are Helm worshippers in the BG games. Or are you saying these games should not be played? I'm confused.

[galraen]

This is the Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn forum Fable, so by definition we are talking about 1E & 2E. Helm is, or was, defined as being Lawful Neutral, the eternat watcher who never gets of the fence! All Helm cares about, and presumably his followers, is the Law, good and evil don't concern him.

For Paladins it's a lot tougher than it is for the simplistic Helmites, they are constantly trying to find a balance between law and good, which as our debate shows, can be very difficult, and with more than one solution.

The dilemma over Imoen is actually rather typical of the inner conflict. For a Helmite the answer really is simple, se broke the law, she therefore pays the price, they are duty bound to ensure that she does so. No moralistic dilemma for them.

Whilst a Paladin has to consider that aspect, but he or she also has to take into account the moral aspects. The solution should be to consult with the Radiant Heart, but Bioware were too short sighted, or short of time, to include that aspect. Torm's folowers have to also bear in mind the wishes of their deity, which means loyalty also come into play, but they then have to consider that Torm's boss, Tyr, places great emphasis on obedience, what to do, what to do.

Obviously the bottom line is it's down to each individual playerto resolve the problem in their own way, and it's then up to the DM to decide on the issue. Unfortunately with a CRPG there isn't really a DM, so we are left to police ourselves, occasionally popping into a forum like this to see what other peoples thoughts are. Well we've given our thoughts, it's up to others what they take note of and what they ignore.

[fable]

This is the Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn forum Fable, so by definition we are talking about 1E & 2E. Helm is, or was, defined as being Lawful Neutral, the eternat watcher who never gets of the fence! All Helm cares about, and presumably his followers, is the Law, good and evil don't concern him.

Galraen, can the sarcasm. Right now. To me, or to anybody else.

For the rest, as the BG series is 1E and 2E, then Helm can't have paladins; yet Ajantis in BG is a paladin of Helm. You seem to be saying that the BG series has to play exactly by the rules, but clearly they don't. Which was my point. They bend the rules. Nobody says a given player can't bend them intelligently when roleplaying, either.

For Paladins it's a lot tougher than it is for the simplistic Helmites, they are constantly trying to find a balance between law and good, which as our debate shows, can be very difficult, and with more than one solution.

Are you even reading what I wrote, above? Because that's exactly what I stated, with plenty of examples, in detail.

1) The Paladin would have been taken away from his/her family at a very early age, so we can pretty much discount that influence in this regard.

2) The training would have been strict with heavy emphasis on loyalty to the order and unhesitant obedience to the law and authority.

3) The culture we know somewhat, and it's brutal in the extreme, the culture the Paladin would have been raised in would have an awful lot more in common with medieval Europe, inquisition and all, than it would with the cultures you and I were brought up in Fable.

#1 is simply your opinion based on the way you see all paladins being played. #2 may be subject to interpretation, according to a wide range of parameters ("immediate obedience to the law and authority" is open to broad interpretation, which was my point).

#3 is both condescending and inaccurate. I've read well over the last 25 years on the subject of Western European late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, as it is a time-consuming hobby of mine, and have written several articles for various scholarly journals. I am aware of the various quasi-religious fraternities of knighthood that were created for a host of differing reasons, and exactly how and when the idealized qualities associated with the job came to be developed. To quote from an earlier post of mine on the subject:

Paladins were simply grafted onto the D&D world from a set of chivalric ideals that infilitrated knighthood around the 14th century ACE, come to fruition over the next 150 years, and died out as knights lost their formidable power in combat.

One excellent work on the subject is Maurice Keen's Chivalry, available from Yale Press, and well worth it for its annotated, thorough research and articulateness. Keen leads off noting the sources of notions of chivalry (which subsequently fed into our ideas of paladinship). The Libre del Ordre de Cavayleria of Ramon Lull, for example, is described at length, ending with the ideals of knighthood:

"He will be a man courteous and nobly spoken, well clad, one who holds open house within the limits of his means. Loyalty and truth, hardiness, largesse and humility will be the principal qualities that we ought to expect in him: courtesy, loyalty, hardiness, largesse, franchise."

Lull himself was a likely catalyst for the whole paladin mythos, being a wealthy, philandering nobleman of some attainment who Got Religion. He developed an elaborate, mystical concept of the universe (which would have gotten him burnt at the stake three hundred years, later, but was eminently OK with the RCC of the period), and decided that his mission in life should be to personally convert every follower of Islam to Christianity. He saw knighthood from the perspective of what it was, and tried to make it into something else, again.

Another influential author of the subject of chivalry was Geoffrey de Charny. His battlefield knighthood credentials place him at the right hand of the French monarchs. He was a member of the knightly and new Order of the Star, created by the French in opposition to Edward III's Order of the Garter, and was appointed bearer of the French king's famed royal standard, the Oriflamme of St. Denis. He died guarding it at the battle of Poitiers in 1356--talk about romantic.

De Charny wrote three texts on chivalry. They focus on the entire structure of knighhood as a class and an attainment. Keen notes one essential distinction between Charny and Lull:

"Charny is indeed concerned with the tinernal world, as we have seen, but the indices of chivalrous achievement that he suggests are external acts and the repute that has attached to them. In this way his book offers a kind of identikit picture which will assist us in recognizing one who has achieved great things in chivalry by the pattern of his experience and its range, without having to probe for subjective reactions which are unverifiable. He will be a man who has been at jousts and tournaments and at war in other lands beside his own, who has served his lord in arms and has crossed the sea in quest of adventures and fame."

Between the two--Lull on the innate qualities, de Charny on the external actions--we have a pretty good measure of what became the concept of knighthood at its height in the early Renaissance of the 15th century, and the paladin-like qualities in modern D&D and AD&D. We can see both sides, Lull and de Charny, in Keldorn, who is first found questing and battling evil, and who later bores everybody with his moral sententiousness. By contrast, Anomen knows how to fight and wishes to quest, but he lacks the Lullesque, inner qualities of the paladin when you first him.


Since you talk down to me upon the matter, I'm willing to learn from you all about the various causes, results, defects and virtues of European knighthood during its flowering in the early Renaissance. Plus we can discuss the texts of at least some of the various troubadour and trouvere works that survive--roughly 100 of the former, 1000 of the latter--and were in many instances (during the first of three generations of these groups) almost exclusively the provenance of knights (who *were* the troubadours and trouveres) and their ideas of courtly love and knightly virtue. Perhaps we can come together to an understanding of how broadly the whole subject of knighthood was viewed by individual fraternities, within different cultures, at various economic and social levels, from family to family and individual to individual. The records certainly survive to demonstrate this.

As for the Middle Ages, it wasn't brutal beyond what much of Europe experienced before its arrival. The idea that it was is largely owed to historians who fell in love with the Roman Empire, and saw the various tribes in Europe and Western Asia as uncivilized brutes. We now know well, on the basis of a better understanding of those various cultures, that they were vibrant societies, in some ways more sophisticated than the Romans, and often more inclined to let their neighbors live in peace than the Romans were. The period of the late Middle Ages was actually one of considerable experimentation in forms of government on a local level, since large state power was often nonexistent. The class structure was more permeable to progress than at any time during the Renaissance, since classes themselves were still in flux, and the aristocracy did not yet perceive themselves as under threat by their "social inferiors." Religious tolerance was greater than it would become, and an astonishing amount of theoretical scientific knowledge accumulated during the latter part, under the spur of ancient Greek texts passed along by the encroaching Islamic Empire. I'll gladly list source documents and secondary texts, if you'd like.

The Inquisition wasn't formed until the very end of the Middle Ages, in the 12th century. It was only charged at the time with rooting out heresy, as among the Cathars, who were themselves pretty violent about imposing their own beliefs on others. (The Inquisition's brief would grow greatly during the later Renaissance, notably in Spain during the 16th century.) Most civic (as opposed to Roman Catholic) records show that during the early Renaissance the Inquisition actually acted as a break against group and individual slaughter, when social entities were casting about for emotional solutions to problems such as the Plague. There are many records of the Inquisition stepping in to rescue people under sentence of death, because the RCC was looking for heresy, not such horrific crimes as being a Jew, a gypsy, an herbalist, or simply belonging to the wrong political group.

We can certainly get into a discussion of the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance any time you want. For now, I'm going to close out my comments, because your manner has led to my own poor temper in response, for which I apologize--thinking this was a polite, open-minded debate about roleplaying in a game.

[galraen]

1) I wasn't trying to be sarcastic, but I was at all times writing in reference to BG1 & BG2 and the Forgotten Realms in general, whereas you had seemed to be writing about other settings. So I was trying, clumsily perhaps, to reiterate the setting I was referring to.

2) The culture I was referring to when I wrote

The culture we know somewhat, and it's brutal in the extreme

was the culture of the forgotten realms, especally in the vicinity of the Sord Coast and Amn.

3) If we were debating the Middle Ages in isolation I suspect we'd agree on far more than we disagree on, at least the contents of your last post in yellow leads me to believe that.

Apart from that, I always had the impression that although D&D grew out of Chainmail, the Paladin was based on Galahad, which is what was indicated in the early D&D books. It's always going to be a difficult debate when two people view the source as being different, especialy when one of them (Galahad) was a romanticised Anglo-Saxon fictional character. To be honest I always thought that LG as the obligatory alignment for a Paladin was wrong, and it should have been NG, but that's a whole new ball game.

I haven't tried to be condescending or sarcastic at any time in this debate, if that's how it came across then I apologise for my inept writing.