Paladins and searching

KRYTON · Post by **KRYTON** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:43 pm

I just started to play BG. What a game!! This is what I have been looking for in a CRPG.
My question is this, when I walk into someone's house and begin to look through the person's cabinets, desks, bookcases, etc, would a Paladin do that? I am trying to play as a lawful good character and Paladins wouldn't just look through and take something that is not theirs.

Laidlaw · Post by **Laidlaw** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:59 pm

A roleplayed paladin wouldn't approve of it no, but if you have a thief in your party you could send them into houses and such whilst your pally isnt looking.

I used Imoen, despite her good tendancies, as it could be viewed as taking things the owners dont need, that you could put to better use for the greater good.

Klorox · Post by **Klorox** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:20 pm

Many of us like to pigeonhole a character by it's alignment, class, race, or whatever.

What matters here is what YOU think a Paladin would do.

Redrake · Post by **Redrake** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:39 pm

In Bg games, every time you loot something in a house who has an occupant, there's a chance you might be spotted and guards will be called. That would lead to fight with them and a serious drop in reputation (bad thing for a paladin or a ranger, since they are going to become fallen).

Barrada Kor · Post by **Barrada Kor** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:20 am

A word of advise if you're just starting out. Always have 3 or so saved games then if you make a mistake you don't have to go too far back in time. Also save before going from one map to another especially when you reach the Cloakwood as you can get ambushed by some pretty hefthy monsters and you can't save during those ambushes.

Good luck and enjoy, and just to re itterate what was said above, play the game as you feel is right but if you are good allignment then killing gaurds and innocents causes a big drop in reputation, so best not to upset the locals too much. The higher your reputation the lower the cost of goods which is a real help particularly early in the game.

wise grimwald · Post by **wise grimwald** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:34 am

If you have a Charisma of 18, there are no houses that have to be broken into, though you might miss out on some interesting sub-quests. Even with a low charisma you can do it, but it would be harder.

KRYTON · Post by **KRYTON** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:33 am

Thanks everyone. I guess you really have to do something wrong, i.e. kill innocents and guards as was mentioned, to loose reputation.

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:55 am

No matter how you approach it a Paladin would never steal, a chaotic good Ranger might, for the greater good, but not a Paladin. Fun class to play especially the Cavalier but a Ranger makes more roleplaying fun because he doesn't have to act all holier than thou

Naffnuff · Post by **Naffnuff** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:22 am

I think of Paladins as the archetypical self-centered and self-righteous aristocrat. I mean, why would he care for lowly peasants; after all, he is an upright champion of his god and a professional warrior to boot, and so he naturally despises manual labour and those associated with it. To be sure, he is lawful, but to him a thieves' nest like Baldur's Gate must look rather like an affront to that legality than a lawful society. So, as prospective lord of the lands, he looks at his "collections" as a sort of down payment on his due, much like most crusading types. Also, one must not underestimate the psychological effects of constantly chopping off limbs--you can't expect him to be entirely rational. At the rate my Childe Rowland is going, he is obviously strung out on adrenaline kicks, not to mention all the other substances that he habitually stuffs himself with.

Naffnuff · Post by **Naffnuff** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:59 am

Also, considering the all-importance of reputation in this game, it's kind of obvious that what matters is not how you act, but how you are perceived to act by everyone else. You only get the "evil" special abilities or become a Fallen Paladin if you have a low reputation. By this logic, playing the Paladin is all about keeping face and making public displays of piety. Sheer Tartufferie, but hey!--that's the Middle Ages. Elminster may have his doubts, but with a wisdom of 17, I sure as hell never left that old do-gooder any proof!

TheAmazingOopah · Post by **TheAmazingOopah** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:09 am

Naffnuff wrote:I think of Paladins as the archetypical self-centered and self-righteous aristocrat. I mean, why would he care for lowly peasants; after all, he is an upright champion of his god and a professional warrior to boot, and so he naturally despises manual labour and those associated with it. To be sure, he is lawful, but to him a thieves' nest like Baldur's Gate must look rather like an affront to that legality than a lawful society. So, as prospective lord of the lands, he looks at his "collections" as a sort of down payment on his due, much like most crusading types. Also, one must not underestimate the psychological effects of constantly chopping off limbs--you can't expect him to be entirely rational. At the rate my Childe Rowland is going, he is obviously strung out on adrenaline kicks, not to mention all the other substances that he habitually stuffs himself with.

Haha, excellent first post:laugh: Welcome to the boards, Sir! Great user name

I think that this post is a good example of how roleplaying allows the player - as Klorox already pointed out - to play the way how the player personally thinks what would be the most fitting. IMO, a "true paladin" wouldn't dream of breaking the law, and would find walking into every house he passes the idea of an criminal, how backward the farmer may be that is living in it. It's just like that you don't enter every house that you see (especially not the locked ones), simply becaue it's illegal. And you have to remind yourself that a paladin is even more stricter and honourful than the everage Joe, so he definitely wouldn't do that. However, the more important aspect is I think, that you don't neccecarily have to play like a "true paladin" when playing a paladin. You can play it like Naffnuff and be a pompous aristocrat who barges into the houses of every smelly peasant and demand to have him hand over one valuable item, to aid you in your quest for the greater good, wheras it would only be wasted in the house of such an afront to society. Or you can still play true paladin and simply have your thief sneak into houses, without you knowing it, like Laidlaw suggested. And maybe even banish Imoen from your party half-way the game, when your paladin "discovers" one day that she has been stealing all along. Or give her a second chance, and have her cease the stealing activities.

Do whatever you want to do. When you're roleplaying, you have the general game handed to you by the designers, and fill in the details by either playing that way, or just doing that in your head. Just use your imagination, whatever makes it feel more real to you, and you'll be fine.

Naffnuff · Post by **Naffnuff** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:30 am

Thanks Amazing Oopah!
Actually Naffnuff is a childish rendering of my own name.
Indeed you are most right. Roleplaying is all about interpreting a character. And different Paladins, even within the same setting or session, must have different outlooks depending on differences in personality and background. Some of them are for real and some are hypocrites, just like in real life, otherwise the roleplaying would be dead. Thats why there are Fallen Paladins.

Naffnuff · Post by **Naffnuff** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:59 am

Aside from the thieving thing, I'm kind of curious as to how other people playing Paladins and other LG characters responded to a very moving scene between a certain drow and a Flaming Fist officer on a rampage. Clearly we here have some kind of internal alignment conflict. I mean, the Fist "is the law," or so he says; however, he seems to admit that Viconia has committed no crime, but gives you no choice but to comply or die; on the other hand, he's an officer of the law and you're not, so obviously you have no say. To make matters worse, a quick detect evil check informs your character that Viconia is evil, while the Fist isn't; but, on the other hand, even by your own standards, unprovokedly attacking people simply because they are evil is both wicked and unlawful. So it seems to me that while a CG character would just dump the bad-apple Fist in a ditch, but then refuse to take Viconia into the party, and while a LE character would probably side with the Fist just to see this hapless wench tortured, seeing in this Fist every tyrant's ideal errand-boy, my Paladin is a little bit at a loss for what to do. Another situation that I find even harder to settle is the one when one is asked to harbour a deserter, and then asked by another Flaming Fist, this one probably just doing his duty, to hand him over for 50 gp (what an insult!). I mean, should he accept this paltry sum of blood-money and turn in this helpless guy to the law for certain torture and death (standard punishment for desertion), or should he go to The Friendly Arm Inn and leave him to the care of the undeniably good and friendly Mirrorshades, in so doing breaking the law. So I suppose my real question boils down to this: which takes precedence, Lawful or Good?

mr_sir · Post by **mr_sir** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:58 am

When I play a Paladin, I play them as a Knight of Truth, Honour and Justice and who strives to protect the weak and innocent. To me, it is more honourable to protect the Drow, even if they are naturally evil, than to let someone kill her purely because she exists. I think justice in that situation is to punish the Flaming Fist soldier by defending the "innocent", if that means that the soldier dies then that is his own fault as he could have just walked away. Who is more evil, the woman who cannot help her race or the way she was brought up, or the soldier who wants to kill her for no reason? In my view, the soldier is the one in the wrong in that situation, unless he had a good reason to kill her other than because he is racist.

In the case of the second situation, I again go against the Flaming Fist. Does the deserter really deserve his punishment given the reason for his crimes or should he be protected from an over-zealous army? Again, the kind of character I play as a Paladin would choose to protect him.

My Paladins are good, there is no doubt about that, but the "Lawful" part is not what I see as laws invented by politicians and generals, but by following the "laws" of his beliefs and calling ... ie. to protect those who are weak and need protection.

KRYTON · Post by **KRYTON** » Wed May 23, 2007 12:03 pm

I don't remember what I did in Viconia's case. I don't remember killing her, but if I remember my AD&D a Paladin would have to fight an evil character regardless or at least turn them over the authorities in this case. That is how we would play. Since it was fairly early in the game I may have let her go because I forgot all about the detect evil Paladin ability. Now I am in the later chapters so I use it frequently and hand out justice to those who are evil. For gaming purposes it works out well. For pnp D&D I can see how you would maybe let her go or fight the guard. You have a DM you can talk to and make a reasonable arguement for you case. On the computer, you have to go by how the program is set up.
If I wouldn't take a hit in reputation or have to worry about the FF chasing me around where ever I go I would protect her, just because she is drow doesn't make her bad law or no law - look at Drizzt.
As for the deserter, I handed him over to the guard. He willingly accepted the job as a FF and now changed his mind and went AWOL. He is not evil because of it but he actually broke the law and deserted. My character would not kill him for deserting but just hand him over. If the FF rule that he should be put to death then so be it.

XearoDisaster · Post by **XearoDisaster** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:21 pm

I would just like to say how GREAT this is to see people with a view like this.
The players i DM have NO idea when it comes to RPing properly.
I have lawful paladins trying to make allegances with undead.
Entertaining, when it turns on them, though.
Its a shame how the BG games dont have that sort of control over alignment issues.

Naffnuff · Post by **Naffnuff** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:15 am

Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that picking a character, having an idea of who that character is, and then acting consistently in accordance with that idea give this game and its sequel a whole new dimension. You may miss out on a few forbidding quests and items, but the game has a different feel to it every time. Essentially, redefining your point of view redefines the whole game.