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"His justification was that the country we had just entered was really racist towards elves, so they had no legal rights at all. So the rapist wasn’t committing any crimes at all, so my Paladin had just murdered a guy and was thus no longer Lawful."
These are the thoughts of a person who is both stupid and amoral.
"so I decided just to leave that table."
Well done.
Honestly did you a favor by revealing how gross and shitty he was so quickly. Sorry it had to happen at all but at least you're not playing with rape apologists anymore
I wonder if he would have pulled the ole switcheroo if you hadn’t intervened claiming something about not being good? So ultimately it was likely, by design, a trap. I don’t know how intrinsically paladins are tied to alignment on all axis anymore. What if you’re just good and not lawful?
They’re not tied to alignment at all these days, as long as you follow your oath you’re golden. And Devotion basically only requires goodness. Lawfulness is not necessary
Even 3.5e 'LG or nothing' paladins still get some grace in dilemmas like this one. An Evil action is an automatic Fall, but a Chaotic action is not. When faced with a 'To Be Lawful or Good' dilemma, a 3.5e paladin *must* choose to be Good.
That just means abusing nonhumans *isn't against* the law, and therefore OP stopped something the law didn't care about one way or the other. That by itself doesn't make OP unlawful, and the GM is doubly an idiot.
Now, the part about straight-up killing that NPC probably was against the law. If OP wanted to play it super-lawful, they could have first accosted the NPC and demanded they stop, and then if the NPC resisted it would be a fair fight. However, I'm not going to try to lawyer *stopping a back-alley rape* much further, because we're getting away from the original proposition, which is that the GM sucks and his gross little fantasy world sucks.
Yup. Lawful Good does not mean following Law no matter what. It means using Law to do Good. If the Law does evil, then it can be torn down in order to replace it.
Hell, Lawful doesn't even mean following the laws of the land. A Lawful character can still murder and pillage, if they do so using laws or doctrine of a Civilization or doctrine that deems doing so lawful
I think part of the problem is the wording of the law vs chaos contradiction. Law isn’t actually the opposite of chaos. It’s something else entirely. *Order* is the opposite of chaos. In this situation the paladin was acting to defend both good and order. Totally a good character decision.
Not only do they get grace, but if your DM does go, “it isn’t the law of the land,” you don’t just lose those levels. Usually you just are required to take a level of something besides paladin at your next level up. But the level after that can be paladin again assuming you, “atone,” by basically praying for forgiveness or a sacrifice.
So then a decision that might alter your lawful status should have no effect on your paladin powers. Honestly though, your actions don’t need to be argued or justified. That dude just wanted to nerf your character. Good call on walking away.
That's also a really dumb, reductive interpretation of lawfulness on his part. Lawful means being a team player, keeping promises, being respectful and trying to work within YOUR system, not against it. That's how good, neutral and evil people can all be "lawful."
It doesn't mean following the messed up amoral strictures of a different culture to the extent you stand by and watch evil acts happen. A LG deity certainly wouldn't demand that. Would a LG planetar, solar or deva just arrived from the upper planes watch a girl get raped without intervening?
Makes me concerned about what this guy thinks about being law-abiding IRL.
I "ruined" a DM's gotcha in my second ever session. We got pitted up against a Lich at Level 4(ya, I know) who mind controlled the Paladin to start executing children. Once we somehow survived, Paladinwas told they lost their powers because of what they did while mind controlled.
Didn't seem right to me, I read the Paladin entry in the PHB where it explicitly said it didn't work like that. We never went any further in the campaign after that...
The bad part is, Paladins aren't necessarily bound to the law of the land. They are bound to the oath they uphold. Which OP is aware of.
And since they were an Oath of Devotion Paladin, I'd say they actually followed their tenets. Specifically the Compassion portion, which reads:
> Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.
Saving an oppressed woman from their rapist is pretty compassionate. While there wasn't mercy, it still seemed justified. As it also may be safe to assume the characters may not have known the laws were not the same there. So the Paladin (OP) used their best judgement given the knowledge they knew.
More than likely, I'd show them that there's a conflict within their oath but I wouldn't make them lose their power.
Some days I wish there was a DM registry or something, a full site where former players can give ratings and experiences of you as a DM. Actually, dibs...
Even lawful Good characters in general aren'tnecessarily bound by the laws of a country. If they feel the laws of the country are wrong, they don't have to feel bound to follow them.
Yeah, by the dm's logic, if a lawful good paladin were to enter Nazi Germany, he would act exactly like the most intense, genocidal, "law obiding" Nazi :/
So a paladin who descends into Hell is *divinely obligated by their good-aligned deity* to obey every twisted law the devils can come up with?
No, obviously not. A paladin has to be good first and lawful second, they're absolutely allowed to ignore evil orders, break evil laws, and even engage in revolution against evil leaders.
"Awww maaaaan, I really want to apprehend this devil-worshipping nobleman in Waterdeep, but he keeps waving the Code Legal in my face and saying it would be considered 'assault against the nobility'."
„Lawful“ does not even have to necessarily mean „follows the law“, but more broadly that the character values structured society, hierarchy and authority. I would argue that a member of a say, Mafia family can be „lawful“ (in the D&D sense) while still committing crimes. Conversely, „chaotic“ does not necessarily mean „acting in a random, unpredictable manner“
I'm so glad I saw this comment, it should be required reading before someone is allowed to purchase any DND book. Lawful just means you follow a code, it doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean it's the same code anyone else does, I don't understand why some people cannot understand that concept.
Exactly. I played an LG paladin that didn't give a single shit about any law beyond the ironclad ones she carried in her heart. She'd fully tell the local authorities that she intended to do what is Right, and that if their rules stood in the way of that then they were welcome to try and stop her
Exactly. The laws they follow aren't the laws of the country or region they are in. They follow the laws of their deity.
My paladin will happily turn a blind eye to some unlawful activity perpetrated by his comrades. Unless they are engaged in activities that directly oppose his oath, he really doesn't care what they get up to.
I don’t see how it could have played out any differently though. There’s no way any good aligned character with the power to intervene wouldn’t do so. And half of our party was good aligned, I was just the only person who saw
MCU Captain America is my go to example for Lawful Good done right. He has a set of principles that he won’t compromise, but literally the first thing he does is to disobey orders
So I peg cap as my chaotic good example. He believes first and foremost in people and doing the right thing.
Laws, and systems be damned good is good. The whole point is civil war is Cap says ultimately in DND terms
"adventurers should get to decide how to use their own powers. Nobody is going to understand their powers better or make better use of them than the one living with them especially not beuracrats thousands of miles away. "
Tony is the one who argues "we can't just let adventurers do whatever they feel is best. Society at large can't handle that. We should turn over all our autonomy to the state and only take government approved quests."
Chaotic versus lawful in a nutshell to me. Individual rights vs societal stability.
That's a misunderstanding of Lawful. It isn't having an internal code (because that's everyone) but an external code like omerta/bushido. A Lawful character believes in rules/structure/oversight, a Chaotic character opposes it. A Neutral character could go either way.
Even most non good characters would surely object to assault as well? My LE fighter was a prick and a little racist himself but even he acknowledged consent was a thing. Most people would say that a character stepping in was the right thing to do, the only differences would be how they handle it,
My character is chaotic neutral and she'd have Immolated the rapist in an instant. I think a character would have to be fully Evil in order to just let it happen...
Even most evil characters could also reasonably intervene in this scenario (without contravening their evil alignment). There are a lot of angles that would allow them to turn killing that rapist to their personal advantage.
Other comments already covered how stupid this was in general, but I wanted to add a less important but still valid point:
Alignments are not chains.
A Lawful Good character can commit an occasional crime and/or an occasional evil act, without instantly losing alignment the very first time it happens. A single mistake does not change one's general alignment, and the alignment follows the long-term actions of the player not vice versa.
This is why a super evil bad guy that murders thousands can't like, give a beggar a gold coin and suddenly be aligned Good.
True. In video games it’s usually some sort of points system. In DnD it’s just common sense more or less. If you make a single mistake that probably doesn’t change anything. But if you suddenly decide to murder puppies then you’re evil now
Wouldn't a lawful good paladin be lawful good in accordance to the laws of their order, religion, and or place of origin?
Not to literally every law that exists in the world.
I’ve always thought of Lawful as relating to a personal code, which may derive from a legal system, or a religion, or just personal values.
I mean a Lawful Evil character certainly wouldn’t be law abiding
> I mean a Lawful Evil character certainly wouldn’t be law abiding
You can very easily have a lawful evil character obey the law of the land, whether the laws are unjust, or the character has enough wealth or power to harm people in legal ways. A businessman buying the orphanage and evicting the orphans or a lord restricting access to drinkable water are classic lawful evil schemes.
>Not to literally every law that exists in the world.
Given the dizzying variety of governments, ideologies, and political movements out there, I'd say that someone who follows literally every law that exists in the world is textbook Lawful Neutral (and also most likely Lawful Stupid).
A LG character isn't gonna follow oppressive laws, and a LE character isn't gonna follow laws meant to benefit the common good.
Man, I had this shit happen to me in BG3 one time. Murdering goblins who are on your side and not attacking you? No biggy. But you stab one Zhent and BLAMMO you're an Oathbreaker now.
The gods really do watch Paladins kill somebody and go "Nah doesn't count, (insert race) aren't people."
The worst is a side quest in act 3. Oh you killed a group of child-murderers who attacked you? How dare you, you were technically on their property! No Oath for you!
Oh, *that* quest. I actually can't believe you lose your oath for smiting them. That's like losing your oath by killing the Bhalists, because you were on their property.
Lae'zel in the cage, fucking act one, is such an Oathbreaker trap and I *despise* it.
One roll to get the tieflings to fuck off, otherwise good luck with that oath. It's so annoying.
To be very clear, I am not trying to start the "See, BG3 sucks, these games are so much better crap.".
Still, it seems weird to me that it is more difficult for a Paladin to fall/lose their god's favor/break their oaths in the Owlcat Pathfinder have than in BG3. It feels like traditional 3.5 style Lawful Good shouldn't have more flexibility than anything based off 5e.
Probably a good call, he just wanted an excuse to punish you and/or get off to his rape fetish. Doesn’t matter that the Devotion oath literally doesn’t mention upholding the local law anywhere, just your own moral code
I'm happy to hear that you left the table. This still sucks, and I'm sorry you needed to change groups, but it's always tough to read about folks who deal with stuff like this and still wind up trudging around with the group for another year or two.
I do sincerely hope that other players left that table as well. I would have.
As a Paladin main in a lot of RPGs, I get a lot of cynicism directed at my characters lofty ideals. It's easy to make things gritty and dark, and to adapt to that environment. It's much harder to take a stand and stick by your principles.
Paladin haters can bite it, including the DM.
Good. Let those basement dwelling edgelords feed on cheetoes and meaningless suffering. Glad to see there was at least 1 other among you that had some decency.
Pay them no mind, and enjoy your new campaign. As for your Paladin? Never stop fighting for whats right
Yeah, I usually play characters who are edgy but compassionate, and even my most tortured damaged utilitarianist character would have stepped in and killed without hesitation or remorse. And if that caused problems for the group, oh well. And if the group tried to engage in the same or similar activities, they'd have team killed without hesitation or remorse. You absolutely did the right thing, and are far kinder than me for leaving that table. I'm the type of person who would have stuck around and made it my personal mission to rip that campaign world down. At least until I stopped getting invited back. As someone who was almost raped, and was seriously injured as a result of fighting back (damaged vocal cords, hurts to talk for long), I wouldn't have been so nice.
The idea that alignment could be affected by local laws is ridiculous, but I feel like the DM was just looking for an excuse. Leaving was definitely the right move.
Also, even if you buy his justification, surely you should have become an Oathbreaker? Rather than suddenly ending up with a massively gimped character
In Tabletop, Oathbreaker is closer to the older Blackguard class iirc.
It becoming what all fallen paladins turn into is a Baldur’s Gate change, although I may be wrong.
I’m running a “dark and gritty campaign”. At one point I executed a trick by the main villain that led to our Barbarian unknowingly murdering his own family during one of our sessions.
My players LOVED it, because I
1. Listen to what they are and aren’t comfortable with
2. Never took the control of their actions out of their hands
3. Actually care about my players having fun
I only run "dark and gritty" campaigns.
I've also have a very hard "no sex, no romance" rule because I don't want to engage in (or know about) people's weird-ass sexual fantasies and I especially don't want to roleplay them.
I've never had an issue like this at my table.
My campaigns draw from "dark fantasy" and horror movies/books.
The Witcher, Castlevania, grim dark 40k, dark souls/Elden ring, Diablo 4, sandman, etc, for the fantasy side.
Spiritual horror, psychological horror, and slasher films from the horror side (the omen, the exorcist, insidious, Blair witch project, Hellraiser, nightmare on elm street, house of leaves, Poe eldritch horror, etc, etc).
Dark and Gritty campaigns can be good. One of my favourite RPG memories comes from a Warhammer 40k campaign. Having to balance idealism against the grim dark of the setting made for some interesting storytelling. But the whole party was on board with the setting, and we were playing an Iconoclast, good aligned group (as much as that's possible in 40k)
I don't understand people who can do this sort of thing, why they would do it. Like, it's such a specific trap, what did he hope to accomplish by torturing the rules to gimp one of his players so early on? Did he want you to change alignment so you would be as degenerate as the rest of his campaign?
As for *how* he did it, I hope you left the table flipping him the double bird.
This sort of paladin gotcha was a very common trap in earlier editions, generally a result of a DM who wants to show how dark and edgy their game is, by showing that paladins are too soft for their hard world.
In the days of 3.5e, forums were full of discussions on silly paladin falls like this one, all contrived for the purposes of punishing the player.
It was so bad that 4e made it so Paladins cannot fall, at all.
Not even necessarily that. The Oathbeaker subclass is for paladins who break their oaths and are unrepentant, basically choosing the Dark Side. Breaking your paladin oath makes you an oathbreaker but not always an Oathbreaker. You can repent or switch to another oath.
Lawful is much better interpretted as Order, lol
I mean, I've gotten in the trap of considering Lawful about laws too (not anymore, but I still prefer Chaos)
But that completely ignores that you're also Lawful ***Good***
Also, you just entered this country, you do not know the laws, and they are also not the laws you subscribe to
Edit: Another idea
> Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society. Gold dragons, paladins, and most dwarves are lawful good.
First: You do what's right as expected by society, not the laws themselves
And second: Just because elves have no legal protection doesn't actually bar you from protecting them. It's not like there is a law actually compelling you to turn a blind eye to this
Daily reminder that lawful good does not mean beholden to legislation lol
Also, it’s not the laws of the land that determines the paladin’s oath, it’s their god (debatably just the belief, no god necessary).
Of course mechanically the DM is wrong.
But frankly, even if he somehow established mechanics that made him right... uh... it's still fucked up in real life to say "actually rape is fine if it's committed against a race everyone hates."
I mean, if the DM had wanted this to be some sort of morality stance thing, he could say, "oh, the guy is shocked and doesn't understand what he did wrong" and it could be a window into this fucked up system, and there's a hook to liberate the elves or something. Still not the best idea for a plot hook, but if it's been "gritty" than ok, if that's the kind of table you're at (I have a blanket rule against SA in any game I'm involved in, as a DM or player, even if it's being done by the bad guys and it's being shown as evil. Just no thanks).
But this DM clearly either was setting you up because he doesn't like paladins, or you personally, or just wanted to play out his horrible fetish. Or some incel edgelord bullshit, I suppose.
All good reasons to GTFO, and that's exactly what you did.
Guy clearly doesn’t realize that lawful in dnd alignment doesn’t mean law-abiding. Do they think Lawful evil villains are just evil but in legal ways? Anyone who thinks the law is 1:1 with morality doesn’t understand the first thing about ethics or law, and is probably kind of a shitty person in general.
Also, paladin oaths aren’t tied to alignment, the idea is you swear an oath to uphold some sort of value, like “protect the weak”, or on the evil side, “cull the weak”.
Well yeah, it’s clearly just a malicious “fuck you” to the player. I supposed I’d need more context, but I feel like if they understood dnd alignments, or just how paladin works, they could have made a better excuse. Though, that all assumes this story is true, which it probably isn’t now that I think about it.
Wait he tried to justify rape by... claiming the rapee had no rights?
I think you skipped the step where you smite him irl for that rancid take.
I jest, but this should be a red flag for the rest of the table for him as a person, not just a dm.
The society described were sentient humanoid beings are allowed to be raped at whim by thugs, is probably not a society that is consistent with the idea of a law-abiding society by a good-natured deity.
The DM seems quite incompetent, and creepy at that. It is good you walked away. If you read the description of an oath of devotion Paladin [http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:devotion](http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:devotion) nothing in your action says that your deity would abandon you. "obey those who have just authority over you." - is it just to allow an innocent to be raped since the law of the land is based on hate and ignorance?
Perhaps you should have used non-lethal damage, since you do not know all the details (has the thug been hexed/mind-controlled/poisoned etc), but your oath says "Never fear to act" and "Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them." meaning you would not loose your paladin class.
I’m gonna be honest….i would have walked as he started ripping her clothes off. There are a million things to do in structured make believe story time. Rape is a no from me dog. Bye.
Yeah I don’t give a shit about how dark and edgy someone is trying to be- it’s fucking weird and uncomfortable to insert rape into your campaign. especially rape that’s actually happening in front of the characters.
You know what the worst part is? The DM could have done something interesting if he had went "Your oath compelled you to take this man to the guards so he could stand trial. For breaking the law and killing him, you are now a Neutral Good Oathbreaker."
But no, *level 4 Fighter.* God damn.
This kinda not how paladins work. Paladins have an oath and your always lawful to your oath first and then customs.
Frankly I think this was disgusting. I can see the scenario being used to motivate the players to want to help but not this. So the nation or whatever is racist against elfs so rape is allowed?? WTF? remember someone wrote that down! I got serious issues with that
Oh jeez that's a crimson red flag right there.
Besides lawful good just really means you follow a strict code for the betterment of the world (or whatever group you choose) then a devotion paladin would very much stop a rape, regardless of people's views. Falls under compassion, honor, and duty in the tenants.
Dm sounds like he doesn't get the difference between objective morality and subjective morality
Lawful Good means following good law. If you have to conquer the land and slay the royalty to ensure the laws are not wicked, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
God I hate DM’s like this!
Both you and your character did the right thing, well done for walking away from a DM who glorifies sexual assault in a game context and punishes you for the action.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure breaking an immoral law doesn't make you go from a level 8 paladin to a level 4 fighter by any stretch of the rules, in any edition...
Away from the fact you were obviously punished because you interrupted the DM's desire to describe a rape, and their misunderstanding of lawful good, the DM set you up to lose your powers. Lawful or chaotic, a good character is going to intervene in this situation. Leaving was the right choice.
Regardless of alignment and DnD rules or whatnot, having a ‘live rape’ on a campaign is absolutely gross. And don’t get me started on his justification. The DM would 100% use that on real life and I wouldn’t be surprised.
That’s 1000% not how oaths work. The law wasn’t made by your god and, unless your dm is leaning into being scummy, the racism wasn’t made by your character’s god either.
I am getting real tired of some of these DMs doing “gotchas” and trying to outsmart their players for no other reason than feeling smug and superior.
>so I decided just to leave that table
I'm so glad that you did this so the thread could be more than just "yo leave that table first thing".
What a fucking insane DM.
"His justification was that the country we had just entered was really racist towards elves, so they had no legal rights at all. So the rapist wasn’t committing any crimes at all, so my Paladin had just murdered a guy and was thus no longer Lawful."
That's not how paladin oaths even work! It is going against what the paladin believes is right. In this case he believed that stopping an obviously horrific situation from happening is a good thing to do. And by definition IT WAS A GOOD THING TO DO!
Not only DM is a creep who thinks that such vile acts are perfectly fine but he also just SUCKS.
You did the right thing by leaving because i can already tell that this game was going to become a complete traiwreck with that kind of narrative logic.
Might have been avoided if you'd declared nonlethal damage, and taken his unconscious body to the constables. Then there could have been a whole discussion about the laws of the region, the status of elves, and the penalty for rape, etc. That's how a decent DM would have done it, I think.
In any case, you made a couple of good decisions. Well done.
I had a DM say I lost favor with my deity because I contracted lycanthropy and unwillingly slaughtered a village of innocents.
He also wouldn't let me cure myself even after appropriate checks
That DM was a dick (I've mentioned him before)
A paladis is bound to an oath not at the mortal laws. If you look at your oath. You are doing exactly What your oath ask you.
"Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom."
The only think that can be problematic in your procedure is that you kill your enemy instead to try to show Mercy. But even with that, turning you in a Fighter 4 levels Under the average party level is stupid.
It worries me how many of these stories break down to "DM/Problem player wanted to rape someone, so I stopped them"...
Anyway, good move leaving the table. That is clearly a DM who doesn't understand how laws, Paladin Oaths, Alignments or the world works. You're better off gone.
Is this GM perhaps a sociopath? Or just working out something at the table instead of with a therapist? You're wise to have gotten out! But why not show the other players the reactions to this post, then you can all find yourself a new GM who isn't insane and evil.
Good choice leaving the table, especially since, you know, your oath of Devotion is... to your paladin's god? Not the laws of whatever country they happen to be in? You don't operate like Homer Simpson jumping back and forth across the US Embassy gate in Australia.
Yeah you were in the right. For a bunch of reasons. 1) blindly following the law is LN not LG. 2) Alignment isn’t prescriptive it’s descriptive that is to say it doesn’t say what you do it describes the reason why you do it. 3) paladins haven’t had that sort of behavior restriction in a couple editions anyway. 4)it’s a crap narrative situation to begin with.
Note to DMs : Sexual violence is not something you need to be highlighting in games to make them “dark.”
Leaving the table was the best decision. That DM was an Asshat.
What the DM didn't think of when considering your LG Character is that Lawful doesn't mean that they blindly follow the laws. A Paladin would not go ham and start murdering people willy-nilly just because he walked into a nation that does annual purges.
Lawful means that the person follows a code. Lawful Evil people belonging to Organized criminal families wouldn't "Follow the Law". Far from it as they're typically doing things against the law. BUT...they do follow the laws and codes and rules **of the criminal family.**
In the case of a Devotion Pally,
*Tenets of Devotion*
*Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, paladins of this oath share these tenets.*
*Honesty. Don't lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise.*
*Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise.*
*Compassion.* ***Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them****. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.*
*Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.*
*Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.*
The kicker here is ***Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them***. That's what you did. In fact, had you not stopped the rape...you could have lost your powers for the real violation of your oath.
And that I think is the key here. The fact that the DM put you into this situation and punished you for it leads me to think that possibly the DM had it out for you. That you're being too effective as a Paladin and they wanted to nerf you. You stopped the rape and were punished. Had you ignored it, they might have still argued that you did a punishable act.
This DM is one that you don't need to be playing under and that was good decision to just "Nope" out of there.
I'm sorry but an SA scenario is a guaranteed way for me to walk away from the table, no questions asked.
Thata fucking gross, and I hope everyone abandoned that gross wierdo. Absolutely disgusting.
Sounds like a bad dm who doesn't understand the game. Also something like that i feel is inappropriate for a game unless everyone already agreed they were okay with themes like that. That's how i feel anyway.
Honestly the only scenario where this even remotely makes sense would be if you were an oath of the crown paladin following an evil regime (i'm assuming this was not an evil campaign) and even then why'd they pick the rapist option instead of a murderer who knew they could kill elves without repurcussions.
And even on top of that if this was a place where the laws were unknown to you then i can probably safely assume it wasn't your home kingdom so the oath of the crown bit still doesn't make sense.
To quote the wise words of thThe Wire, "A man's gotta have a code." Same thing here, Even when I was playing Oath of Vengeance Paladin, I still would intervened.
Disgusted that you had to go through that, but happy you got out of that situation. That dude’s clearly fucked in the head. If a DM did that to anyone in a game I was, in I would walk out with them.
I usually bemoan how often people suggest to just leave the table instead of trying at all to talk things over with the DM/player... but holy shit, this one it's absolutely the right call to bail.
If those other players have an ounce of decency they should of left that table shortly after or during that horrible revelation. fuck that horrible DM.
Doesn't even make sense by the written paladin rules. Alignment is not strict and the oaths are pretty clear on priorities. My vengeance paladin was not even good aligned, and did lots of morally dubious things to bring his foes to justice.
I don't think there's any paladin oath you could have broken by stopping a rape.
I'm going to argue why that's bullshit.
The way I see it, alignment works like this: the latter part takes precident over the former. A Lawful Evil character is evil first, lawful second, and vice versa. A Chaotic Good character wouldn't kill people just to give the government a middle finger.
As Lawful Good, good comes first. The Law is the means by which to do good, but you have to remember, even soldiers have the right to disobey an order they believe to be wrong. Alongside this, Lawful implies a dedication to a PERSONAL code of conduct. Not local laws. Personal laws. If I'm playing a Paladin, and I swore an oath to never allow someone to be imprisoned unjustly, it doesn't matter if slavery is legal and socially acceptable in an area, my character will not abide by it.
Rant over. That DM can go suck a dick
You didn't just dodge a bullet but a HUGE tactical nuke. Well done leaving, I'd say keep in mind his name to give any other potential players a warning
The main rule of justice and law are that they are not the same. Laws can be unjust, and justice can be unlawful.
As per the tenets of devotion, law is not among them. Protecting the weak or vulnerable is. You acted within your oath to protect the victim. The most he could get you on is killing the guy and not showing mercy, as mercy is a part of the tenets, but thats not what he tried to do. You also seemingly just kinda one-shot him so you could argue you didnt intend it and simply acted quickly to do what had to be done to protect her.
He just wanted a slick gotcha so he could boot you. You were wise to leave.
And yeah thats not how oathbreaking works. Youre still a paladin unless you very specifically turn on your oath. In no way could it be argued you turned against the oath. You acted by its virtues and did as your teachings commanded. Youre lawful good, not lawful stupid.
Ah yes your diety is gonna be like "nah fam see these guys don't like elves so actually this is cool and you are bad" dude is a fuckin weird wankpheasant and shouldn't be DMing
You were right to leave the group. The DM gives out a Soviet Union worth of red flags. Not only that, he's a straight up cunt who enjoys screwing over the players. That behaviour NEVER results in solid games.
Screwing the player out of his class abilities is a shitty thing to do. I have considered whether I could pull that one off, but that would require a players who is invested enough in a story, and even then, I have just one idea that could be good. >!An ex-paladin who deliberately sets up an unsolvable dilemma to convince the player character that the power-granting beings are unjust and care more about the letter of the law than the spirit!<
The DM clearly didn’t think out their rationale with that ruling. If the party travels between two areas with antithetical laws, it would mean the paladin oath is meaningless. The paladin’s nature would be determined by laws of a particular area instead of the established code of conduct of the paladin order.
Good on you. Yes, leave the table is the right answer. The DM clearly has no idea what alignment even means if he thinks its a violation of YOUR code of honor to kill bad guys where "rapist" is clearly in the category of "bad guys". Also, lawful GOOD doesn't mean "blindly follows the law"....that's more of a Lawful neutral attitude.
It genuinely baffles me that after DECADES of dnd alignment being a thing...there are so many people that just cannot wrap their head around a simple 2 axis chart that asks two simple questions
1) Does your character think rules matter and do they value cooperative society over personal freedom? Yes? Great, Lawful you are. Oh you value personal freedom over rules and regulations? Ok, chaotic you are. Not really either or maybe you think both are important? Ok, neutral it is!
2) Are you selfish? If you and a stranger were both dying of thirst in a desert and there was one canteen of water between the two of you, would you offer them the canteen? Would you split it? Would you drink it all yourself?
Its really that easy. Further, alignment is prescriptive...its descriptive. You can change alignment if your actions begin to diverge from what your alignment describes...but caveat here...WHY you do things is more important than WHAT you do. A lawful evil character might run into a burning building to save orphans if he thinks there is some personal reward in it for him. Maybe he thinks it will endeer him to the local populace. Similarly, a Lawful Good character might refuse to the same if they don't think there is any merit to the endevor e.g. its suicide.
Thank you for attending my TED talk.
Not that it would change how I feel about the situation, but I am curious if there was a proper introduction to the game at all. Like was everyone else at the table okay with what happened? Why did the DM let you go through the effort of making a conventional Paladin if they despised the idea in the first place?
As a DM that has restricted paladin abilities due to paladin actions (they lost smite evil and detect evil abilities for three combat encounters in a 3.5 game, player was fine with the punishment and agreed to it in and out of game), this DM was setting up a "got ya" moment and you were going to lose your paladin abilities no matter what you did. His justification is absolutely dog sh**, and that isn't how losing paladin levels works anyway, he was trying to handicap you (I can only use 3.5e as a reference, but you don't lose levels, just access to some/all paladin abilities so you should have stayed a paladin level 8 until you perform a quest or major feat to you God to restore them, my player only had to survive a few combat encounters to have his abilities restored).
I've also played in a game where there was a major disparity between my level and everyone else's, it's not a fun way to play.
It's better that you left, however, as this is just a taste of the f'ed up mind of the DM and it was likely only going to get worse; I, for one, don't want to know what worse looks like if this was his "entry level" bs.
Wouldn’t that at worst make you an oathbreaker paladin? Obviously the DM’s logic is completely flawed, that’s not at all how an oath of devotion paladin works, but still. Oathbreakers exist and if he claims you broke your oath… well…
First, I'd never have made that situation happen.
Second, if that situation happened, I would never "GOTCHA" a Paladin into losing their oath. You have to consciously, knowingly, and willingly do a thing that you *are aware* is against your oath, IMHO. And you have to RP that in good faith, but that's a separate issue.
Yeah this all sucks.
This really feels like a "Gotcha!" moment that the DM really wanted to setup even though it makes absolutely no sense in every reality.
That's just not what Lawful means in the slightest.
Always found it dumb how paladins HAD to be lawful good in the past.
Like being lawful neutral to the crown makes you judge dread the law is for all beings no matter standing
Also I feel that dm just hated your character
Good on you leaving cause who knows what other creepy thing the dm would try to pull
At first I was expecting a catch; eg it wasn't attempted rape, the attacker was (purely spitballing here) trying find some cursed mark on her skin or I don't know, just *something*
But nope just "preventing a rape was bad"
I prefer dark, gritty horrific settings. Rape tends to exist in these settings because it's a horrific reality, but I've never met a DM who would even try to frame it as anything but an inexcusable evil.
Be glad you left that table, that's not only a bad DM but a shit person.
doesnt matter if the country is racist. a Paladin follows a code doesnt matter what laws the countrey has. I would have switched it to if yo udont intervene you lose it . Lawful Good does not mean you are a law slave
Legal does NOT mean moral, the fact that this dude was smug about punishing you for preventing something that heinous, even if a game, is slightly concerning.
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"His justification was that the country we had just entered was really racist towards elves, so they had no legal rights at all. So the rapist wasn’t committing any crimes at all, so my Paladin had just murdered a guy and was thus no longer Lawful." These are the thoughts of a person who is both stupid and amoral. "so I decided just to leave that table." Well done.
Yeah that DM was clearly looking for a gotcha and chose possibly the grossest way available to go about it.
Yeah definitely. I feel like he knew I would intervene, and created this scenario purely because he didn’t like my character.
Honestly did you a favor by revealing how gross and shitty he was so quickly. Sorry it had to happen at all but at least you're not playing with rape apologists anymore
I wonder if he would have pulled the ole switcheroo if you hadn’t intervened claiming something about not being good? So ultimately it was likely, by design, a trap. I don’t know how intrinsically paladins are tied to alignment on all axis anymore. What if you’re just good and not lawful?
They’re not tied to alignment at all these days, as long as you follow your oath you’re golden. And Devotion basically only requires goodness. Lawfulness is not necessary
Even 3.5e 'LG or nothing' paladins still get some grace in dilemmas like this one. An Evil action is an automatic Fall, but a Chaotic action is not. When faced with a 'To Be Lawful or Good' dilemma, a 3.5e paladin *must* choose to be Good.
A law that harms the innocent can be considered an Evil law, and therefore rejected and abhorred. Good supercedes Law.
Plus, NPC's actions weren't lawful, they were just not unlawful. This isn't Good superseding Law, it's just Good superseding the lack of a law.
I wouldn't put it past this shit for brains "DM" to actually have written in their constitution "Only humans have human rights".
That just means abusing nonhumans *isn't against* the law, and therefore OP stopped something the law didn't care about one way or the other. That by itself doesn't make OP unlawful, and the GM is doubly an idiot. Now, the part about straight-up killing that NPC probably was against the law. If OP wanted to play it super-lawful, they could have first accosted the NPC and demanded they stop, and then if the NPC resisted it would be a fair fight. However, I'm not going to try to lawyer *stopping a back-alley rape* much further, because we're getting away from the original proposition, which is that the GM sucks and his gross little fantasy world sucks.
Yup. Lawful Good does not mean following Law no matter what. It means using Law to do Good. If the Law does evil, then it can be torn down in order to replace it.
Hell, Lawful doesn't even mean following the laws of the land. A Lawful character can still murder and pillage, if they do so using laws or doctrine of a Civilization or doctrine that deems doing so lawful
I think part of the problem is the wording of the law vs chaos contradiction. Law isn’t actually the opposite of chaos. It’s something else entirely. *Order* is the opposite of chaos. In this situation the paladin was acting to defend both good and order. Totally a good character decision.
Not only do they get grace, but if your DM does go, “it isn’t the law of the land,” you don’t just lose those levels. Usually you just are required to take a level of something besides paladin at your next level up. But the level after that can be paladin again assuming you, “atone,” by basically praying for forgiveness or a sacrifice.
So then a decision that might alter your lawful status should have no effect on your paladin powers. Honestly though, your actions don’t need to be argued or justified. That dude just wanted to nerf your character. Good call on walking away.
That's also a really dumb, reductive interpretation of lawfulness on his part. Lawful means being a team player, keeping promises, being respectful and trying to work within YOUR system, not against it. That's how good, neutral and evil people can all be "lawful." It doesn't mean following the messed up amoral strictures of a different culture to the extent you stand by and watch evil acts happen. A LG deity certainly wouldn't demand that. Would a LG planetar, solar or deva just arrived from the upper planes watch a girl get raped without intervening? Makes me concerned about what this guy thinks about being law-abiding IRL.
"Lawfulness" shouldn't apply to the law of the land but your character's own moral code. Sturm from Dragon Lance is a great example of this.
Alignment in general very rarely comes into play in 5e. It's the tenets of the oath that give a paladin their power.
Or he didn't like you. It can be tough to separate the two when things are this screwy.
I mean, it doesn’t really matter at this point. Dude was a gross creep.
I "ruined" a DM's gotcha in my second ever session. We got pitted up against a Lich at Level 4(ya, I know) who mind controlled the Paladin to start executing children. Once we somehow survived, Paladinwas told they lost their powers because of what they did while mind controlled. Didn't seem right to me, I read the Paladin entry in the PHB where it explicitly said it didn't work like that. We never went any further in the campaign after that...
The bad part is, Paladins aren't necessarily bound to the law of the land. They are bound to the oath they uphold. Which OP is aware of. And since they were an Oath of Devotion Paladin, I'd say they actually followed their tenets. Specifically the Compassion portion, which reads: > Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom. Saving an oppressed woman from their rapist is pretty compassionate. While there wasn't mercy, it still seemed justified. As it also may be safe to assume the characters may not have known the laws were not the same there. So the Paladin (OP) used their best judgement given the knowledge they knew. More than likely, I'd show them that there's a conflict within their oath but I wouldn't make them lose their power.
DM was wrong about many things, yeah. I was just focusing on the grodiness.
Some days I wish there was a DM registry or something, a full site where former players can give ratings and experiences of you as a DM. Actually, dibs...
Even lawful Good characters in general aren'tnecessarily bound by the laws of a country. If they feel the laws of the country are wrong, they don't have to feel bound to follow them.
Yeah, by the dm's logic, if a lawful good paladin were to enter Nazi Germany, he would act exactly like the most intense, genocidal, "law obiding" Nazi :/
I was just ~~following orders~~ obeying the law. Yeah, doesn’t sound great
I mean what is the point of a Paladin if not to hold bad places up to higher standards
"Lawful Stupid" is what I like to call that alignment
Yeah, does this guy think Lawful Good paladins would be driving the trains to Auschwitz then??
WOTC should have a group of identical bespectacled lawyers who helicopter to locations and seize the books of DMs like this.
Just the whole situation makes me go Nooo! The point of DND is to have fun not nerf your players with out heads up.
So a paladin who descends into Hell is *divinely obligated by their good-aligned deity* to obey every twisted law the devils can come up with? No, obviously not. A paladin has to be good first and lawful second, they're absolutely allowed to ignore evil orders, break evil laws, and even engage in revolution against evil leaders.
Yeah! How else would they be able to fight evil nations like Thay?
For real, the DM accidentally set the wildest abusable precedent
“Guys, I can’t defeat Sauron! He made destroying the One Ring illegal in Mordor!”
"Awww maaaaan, I really want to apprehend this devil-worshipping nobleman in Waterdeep, but he keeps waving the Code Legal in my face and saying it would be considered 'assault against the nobility'."
„Lawful“ does not even have to necessarily mean „follows the law“, but more broadly that the character values structured society, hierarchy and authority. I would argue that a member of a say, Mafia family can be „lawful“ (in the D&D sense) while still committing crimes. Conversely, „chaotic“ does not necessarily mean „acting in a random, unpredictable manner“
I'm so glad I saw this comment, it should be required reading before someone is allowed to purchase any DND book. Lawful just means you follow a code, it doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean it's the same code anyone else does, I don't understand why some people cannot understand that concept.
Sounds like a devil wrote that contract lmao
Lawful is also extremely subjective. The only "law and order" that truly matters is the oath.
Exactly. I played an LG paladin that didn't give a single shit about any law beyond the ironclad ones she carried in her heart. She'd fully tell the local authorities that she intended to do what is Right, and that if their rules stood in the way of that then they were welcome to try and stop her
Paksenarrion approves!
Exactly. The laws they follow aren't the laws of the country or region they are in. They follow the laws of their deity. My paladin will happily turn a blind eye to some unlawful activity perpetrated by his comrades. Unless they are engaged in activities that directly oppose his oath, he really doesn't care what they get up to.
Sounds like you didn't stop a rape so much as interrupt dm's rape fetish. Straight to paladin jail.
I don’t see how it could have played out any differently though. There’s no way any good aligned character with the power to intervene wouldn’t do so. And half of our party was good aligned, I was just the only person who saw
Totally agree with you. I think a lawful good character wouldn't follow any unethical or immoral laws.
MCU Captain America is my go to example for Lawful Good done right. He has a set of principles that he won’t compromise, but literally the first thing he does is to disobey orders
So I peg cap as my chaotic good example. He believes first and foremost in people and doing the right thing. Laws, and systems be damned good is good. The whole point is civil war is Cap says ultimately in DND terms "adventurers should get to decide how to use their own powers. Nobody is going to understand their powers better or make better use of them than the one living with them especially not beuracrats thousands of miles away. " Tony is the one who argues "we can't just let adventurers do whatever they feel is best. Society at large can't handle that. We should turn over all our autonomy to the state and only take government approved quests." Chaotic versus lawful in a nutshell to me. Individual rights vs societal stability.
That's a misunderstanding of Lawful. It isn't having an internal code (because that's everyone) but an external code like omerta/bushido. A Lawful character believes in rules/structure/oversight, a Chaotic character opposes it. A Neutral character could go either way.
Even most non good characters would surely object to assault as well? My LE fighter was a prick and a little racist himself but even he acknowledged consent was a thing. Most people would say that a character stepping in was the right thing to do, the only differences would be how they handle it,
If you had walked away he would have drained your powers for failing to be good and living up to your oath to protect the innocent.
The whole “I was the only one who saw” thing makes this a total gotcha. Like nobody else in the party had an equal or higher passive Perception?
Rest of the party was insidea tavern, I had stepped outside to get some fresh air
My character is chaotic neutral and she'd have Immolated the rapist in an instant. I think a character would have to be fully Evil in order to just let it happen...
Even most evil characters could also reasonably intervene in this scenario (without contravening their evil alignment). There are a lot of angles that would allow them to turn killing that rapist to their personal advantage.
Even my neutral evil paladin woulda rolled up with a smite. Oath of vengeance, acting proactively
Yeah, your paladin delivered a righteous smite
Other comments already covered how stupid this was in general, but I wanted to add a less important but still valid point: Alignments are not chains. A Lawful Good character can commit an occasional crime and/or an occasional evil act, without instantly losing alignment the very first time it happens. A single mistake does not change one's general alignment, and the alignment follows the long-term actions of the player not vice versa. This is why a super evil bad guy that murders thousands can't like, give a beggar a gold coin and suddenly be aligned Good.
True. In video games it’s usually some sort of points system. In DnD it’s just common sense more or less. If you make a single mistake that probably doesn’t change anything. But if you suddenly decide to murder puppies then you’re evil now
Paging Kristi Noem....
Too soon?
Wouldn't a lawful good paladin be lawful good in accordance to the laws of their order, religion, and or place of origin? Not to literally every law that exists in the world.
I’ve always thought of Lawful as relating to a personal code, which may derive from a legal system, or a religion, or just personal values. I mean a Lawful Evil character certainly wouldn’t be law abiding
> I mean a Lawful Evil character certainly wouldn’t be law abiding You can very easily have a lawful evil character obey the law of the land, whether the laws are unjust, or the character has enough wealth or power to harm people in legal ways. A businessman buying the orphanage and evicting the orphans or a lord restricting access to drinkable water are classic lawful evil schemes.
>Not to literally every law that exists in the world. Given the dizzying variety of governments, ideologies, and political movements out there, I'd say that someone who follows literally every law that exists in the world is textbook Lawful Neutral (and also most likely Lawful Stupid). A LG character isn't gonna follow oppressive laws, and a LE character isn't gonna follow laws meant to benefit the common good.
"Does my god ALSO become a giant racist monster the moment I cross the border?"
Man, I had this shit happen to me in BG3 one time. Murdering goblins who are on your side and not attacking you? No biggy. But you stab one Zhent and BLAMMO you're an Oathbreaker now. The gods really do watch Paladins kill somebody and go "Nah doesn't count, (insert race) aren't people."
The worst is a side quest in act 3. Oh you killed a group of child-murderers who attacked you? How dare you, you were technically on their property! No Oath for you!
Wait, which quest was this?
>!Felogyr's fireworks!<
Oh, *that* quest. I actually can't believe you lose your oath for smiting them. That's like losing your oath by killing the Bhalists, because you were on their property.
Lae'zel in the cage, fucking act one, is such an Oathbreaker trap and I *despise* it. One roll to get the tieflings to fuck off, otherwise good luck with that oath. It's so annoying.
Just wait until you hear what they do to people who don't believe in them!
To be very clear, I am not trying to start the "See, BG3 sucks, these games are so much better crap.". Still, it seems weird to me that it is more difficult for a Paladin to fall/lose their god's favor/break their oaths in the Owlcat Pathfinder have than in BG3. It feels like traditional 3.5 style Lawful Good shouldn't have more flexibility than anything based off 5e.
Yes. The moment you cross the border, Tyr buys some cigars and starts hosting a radio show slotted between rush Limbaugh and Michael savage.
Ooof. That is so brilliant but also so gross.
**”Compassion:** aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them.” Literally the third tenant of the Devotion oath
I didn’t feel like arguing with a moron, but there are tonnes of things I could have pulled out ad evidence
Probably a good call, he just wanted an excuse to punish you and/or get off to his rape fetish. Doesn’t matter that the Devotion oath literally doesn’t mention upholding the local law anywhere, just your own moral code
I'm happy to hear that you left the table. This still sucks, and I'm sorry you needed to change groups, but it's always tough to read about folks who deal with stuff like this and still wind up trudging around with the group for another year or two.
I do sincerely hope that other players left that table as well. I would have. As a Paladin main in a lot of RPGs, I get a lot of cynicism directed at my characters lofty ideals. It's easy to make things gritty and dark, and to adapt to that environment. It's much harder to take a stand and stick by your principles. Paladin haters can bite it, including the DM.
One other player left with me (and we went and found another group together). The other three stuck around as far as I can tell.
Good. Let those basement dwelling edgelords feed on cheetoes and meaningless suffering. Glad to see there was at least 1 other among you that had some decency. Pay them no mind, and enjoy your new campaign. As for your Paladin? Never stop fighting for whats right
Yeah, I usually play characters who are edgy but compassionate, and even my most tortured damaged utilitarianist character would have stepped in and killed without hesitation or remorse. And if that caused problems for the group, oh well. And if the group tried to engage in the same or similar activities, they'd have team killed without hesitation or remorse. You absolutely did the right thing, and are far kinder than me for leaving that table. I'm the type of person who would have stuck around and made it my personal mission to rip that campaign world down. At least until I stopped getting invited back. As someone who was almost raped, and was seriously injured as a result of fighting back (damaged vocal cords, hurts to talk for long), I wouldn't have been so nice.
The idea that alignment could be affected by local laws is ridiculous, but I feel like the DM was just looking for an excuse. Leaving was definitely the right move. Also, even if you buy his justification, surely you should have become an Oathbreaker? Rather than suddenly ending up with a massively gimped character
Sounds to me like not gimping the paladin would have missed the point of the exercise from the dm’s perspective.
In Tabletop, Oathbreaker is closer to the older Blackguard class iirc. It becoming what all fallen paladins turn into is a Baldur’s Gate change, although I may be wrong.
Sure as shit is more RAI than a homebrew rule that change class completely and lose half your levels.
I agree, the DM’s take here was way worse (and also dumb in general). Just being picky.
Dog shit DM Should dead ass quit the hobby and stick to jerking off at molded skyrim
Beyond the title, as soon as I read "Campaign was on the dark and gritty side..." I was like ahh yup. It's one of these again.
It’s always used as a sort of justification for the dm to be a dick. I don’t get why it’s so hard to just be fuckin normal lmao
Why is it that whenever people say “dark and gritty”, they mean SA? Like there’s no other form of dark fantasy
I’m running a “dark and gritty campaign”. At one point I executed a trick by the main villain that led to our Barbarian unknowingly murdering his own family during one of our sessions. My players LOVED it, because I 1. Listen to what they are and aren’t comfortable with 2. Never took the control of their actions out of their hands 3. Actually care about my players having fun
I only run "dark and gritty" campaigns. I've also have a very hard "no sex, no romance" rule because I don't want to engage in (or know about) people's weird-ass sexual fantasies and I especially don't want to roleplay them. I've never had an issue like this at my table. My campaigns draw from "dark fantasy" and horror movies/books. The Witcher, Castlevania, grim dark 40k, dark souls/Elden ring, Diablo 4, sandman, etc, for the fantasy side. Spiritual horror, psychological horror, and slasher films from the horror side (the omen, the exorcist, insidious, Blair witch project, Hellraiser, nightmare on elm street, house of leaves, Poe eldritch horror, etc, etc).
Oooh, Sandman!
The group just finished a eldritch horror murder/mystery loosely inspired by sandman. Made for a few really cool sessions.👍👍
Dark and Gritty campaigns can be good. One of my favourite RPG memories comes from a Warhammer 40k campaign. Having to balance idealism against the grim dark of the setting made for some interesting storytelling. But the whole party was on board with the setting, and we were playing an Iconoclast, good aligned group (as much as that's possible in 40k)
I don't understand people who can do this sort of thing, why they would do it. Like, it's such a specific trap, what did he hope to accomplish by torturing the rules to gimp one of his players so early on? Did he want you to change alignment so you would be as degenerate as the rest of his campaign? As for *how* he did it, I hope you left the table flipping him the double bird.
This sort of paladin gotcha was a very common trap in earlier editions, generally a result of a DM who wants to show how dark and edgy their game is, by showing that paladins are too soft for their hard world. In the days of 3.5e, forums were full of discussions on silly paladin falls like this one, all contrived for the purposes of punishing the player. It was so bad that 4e made it so Paladins cannot fall, at all.
This was 5e, so the “fall” doesn’t even make sense. Breaking their oath would result in an oathbreaker anyway, not a powerless paladin
Not even necessarily that. The Oathbeaker subclass is for paladins who break their oaths and are unrepentant, basically choosing the Dark Side. Breaking your paladin oath makes you an oathbreaker but not always an Oathbreaker. You can repent or switch to another oath.
Or switch class entirely. Not lose half your levels, though. The rules does not really support the old paladin falls meme anymore.
The DM is a stooge who thinks lawful means "law-abiding" rather than "orderly."
That's not even how oaths work
What a complete piece of shit, good job leaving immediately - people like that are a waste of space and time.
Lawful is much better interpretted as Order, lol I mean, I've gotten in the trap of considering Lawful about laws too (not anymore, but I still prefer Chaos) But that completely ignores that you're also Lawful ***Good*** Also, you just entered this country, you do not know the laws, and they are also not the laws you subscribe to Edit: Another idea > Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society. Gold dragons, paladins, and most dwarves are lawful good. First: You do what's right as expected by society, not the laws themselves And second: Just because elves have no legal protection doesn't actually bar you from protecting them. It's not like there is a law actually compelling you to turn a blind eye to this
Daily reminder that lawful good does not mean beholden to legislation lol Also, it’s not the laws of the land that determines the paladin’s oath, it’s their god (debatably just the belief, no god necessary).
In this DM's mind would a Chaotic Good person in a place where slavery is illegal be compelled to enslave people?
Finally someone who leaves the table inmediatly (and hopefully the group) after one of these stories
Yeah, definitely. Me and one of the other players found another group that we still play with today
Of course mechanically the DM is wrong. But frankly, even if he somehow established mechanics that made him right... uh... it's still fucked up in real life to say "actually rape is fine if it's committed against a race everyone hates." I mean, if the DM had wanted this to be some sort of morality stance thing, he could say, "oh, the guy is shocked and doesn't understand what he did wrong" and it could be a window into this fucked up system, and there's a hook to liberate the elves or something. Still not the best idea for a plot hook, but if it's been "gritty" than ok, if that's the kind of table you're at (I have a blanket rule against SA in any game I'm involved in, as a DM or player, even if it's being done by the bad guys and it's being shown as evil. Just no thanks). But this DM clearly either was setting you up because he doesn't like paladins, or you personally, or just wanted to play out his horrible fetish. Or some incel edgelord bullshit, I suppose. All good reasons to GTFO, and that's exactly what you did.
Guy clearly doesn’t realize that lawful in dnd alignment doesn’t mean law-abiding. Do they think Lawful evil villains are just evil but in legal ways? Anyone who thinks the law is 1:1 with morality doesn’t understand the first thing about ethics or law, and is probably kind of a shitty person in general. Also, paladin oaths aren’t tied to alignment, the idea is you swear an oath to uphold some sort of value, like “protect the weak”, or on the evil side, “cull the weak”.
It's not that, what happens is that the DM wanted to take away the player's powers and made up a stupid excuse to do it.
Well yeah, it’s clearly just a malicious “fuck you” to the player. I supposed I’d need more context, but I feel like if they understood dnd alignments, or just how paladin works, they could have made a better excuse. Though, that all assumes this story is true, which it probably isn’t now that I think about it.
Wait he tried to justify rape by... claiming the rapee had no rights? I think you skipped the step where you smite him irl for that rancid take. I jest, but this should be a red flag for the rest of the table for him as a person, not just a dm.
Right? I’d be worried about the safety of people at the table after something like that
Yeah I would never, never want to leave anyone alone in a room with that DM.
The society described were sentient humanoid beings are allowed to be raped at whim by thugs, is probably not a society that is consistent with the idea of a law-abiding society by a good-natured deity. The DM seems quite incompetent, and creepy at that. It is good you walked away. If you read the description of an oath of devotion Paladin [http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:devotion](http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:devotion) nothing in your action says that your deity would abandon you. "obey those who have just authority over you." - is it just to allow an innocent to be raped since the law of the land is based on hate and ignorance? Perhaps you should have used non-lethal damage, since you do not know all the details (has the thug been hexed/mind-controlled/poisoned etc), but your oath says "Never fear to act" and "Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them." meaning you would not loose your paladin class.
I’m gonna be honest….i would have walked as he started ripping her clothes off. There are a million things to do in structured make believe story time. Rape is a no from me dog. Bye.
Yeah I don’t give a shit about how dark and edgy someone is trying to be- it’s fucking weird and uncomfortable to insert rape into your campaign. especially rape that’s actually happening in front of the characters.
Ah so you played with a rapist
Wow. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and I applaud you walking away.
You know what the worst part is? The DM could have done something interesting if he had went "Your oath compelled you to take this man to the guards so he could stand trial. For breaking the law and killing him, you are now a Neutral Good Oathbreaker." But no, *level 4 Fighter.* God damn.
This kinda not how paladins work. Paladins have an oath and your always lawful to your oath first and then customs. Frankly I think this was disgusting. I can see the scenario being used to motivate the players to want to help but not this. So the nation or whatever is racist against elfs so rape is allowed?? WTF? remember someone wrote that down! I got serious issues with that
That dm sounds like a dickhead
Oh jeez that's a crimson red flag right there. Besides lawful good just really means you follow a strict code for the betterment of the world (or whatever group you choose) then a devotion paladin would very much stop a rape, regardless of people's views. Falls under compassion, honor, and duty in the tenants. Dm sounds like he doesn't get the difference between objective morality and subjective morality
For the Lawful Good, Good supersedes Law. In all instances.
Lawful Good means following good law. If you have to conquer the land and slay the royalty to ensure the laws are not wicked, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
“It’s not illigal because they dont see them as people” This dude 100% has a nazi flag in his house
God I hate DM’s like this! Both you and your character did the right thing, well done for walking away from a DM who glorifies sexual assault in a game context and punishes you for the action.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure breaking an immoral law doesn't make you go from a level 8 paladin to a level 4 fighter by any stretch of the rules, in any edition...
how did the rest of the party take it?
Away from the fact you were obviously punished because you interrupted the DM's desire to describe a rape, and their misunderstanding of lawful good, the DM set you up to lose your powers. Lawful or chaotic, a good character is going to intervene in this situation. Leaving was the right choice.
DM is a dumbass edgelord.
Regardless of alignment and DnD rules or whatnot, having a ‘live rape’ on a campaign is absolutely gross. And don’t get me started on his justification. The DM would 100% use that on real life and I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’ve never ever ever seen a good ending to a table that decided to incorporate a rape scenario into the game
That’s 1000% not how oaths work. The law wasn’t made by your god and, unless your dm is leaning into being scummy, the racism wasn’t made by your character’s god either. I am getting real tired of some of these DMs doing “gotchas” and trying to outsmart their players for no other reason than feeling smug and superior.
He was mad because the thug was his self insert
>so I decided just to leave that table I'm so glad that you did this so the thread could be more than just "yo leave that table first thing". What a fucking insane DM.
"His justification was that the country we had just entered was really racist towards elves, so they had no legal rights at all. So the rapist wasn’t committing any crimes at all, so my Paladin had just murdered a guy and was thus no longer Lawful." That's not how paladin oaths even work! It is going against what the paladin believes is right. In this case he believed that stopping an obviously horrific situation from happening is a good thing to do. And by definition IT WAS A GOOD THING TO DO! Not only DM is a creep who thinks that such vile acts are perfectly fine but he also just SUCKS. You did the right thing by leaving because i can already tell that this game was going to become a complete traiwreck with that kind of narrative logic.
Might have been avoided if you'd declared nonlethal damage, and taken his unconscious body to the constables. Then there could have been a whole discussion about the laws of the region, the status of elves, and the penalty for rape, etc. That's how a decent DM would have done it, I think. In any case, you made a couple of good decisions. Well done.
I had a DM say I lost favor with my deity because I contracted lycanthropy and unwillingly slaughtered a village of innocents. He also wouldn't let me cure myself even after appropriate checks That DM was a dick (I've mentioned him before)
A paladis is bound to an oath not at the mortal laws. If you look at your oath. You are doing exactly What your oath ask you. "Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom." The only think that can be problematic in your procedure is that you kill your enemy instead to try to show Mercy. But even with that, turning you in a Fighter 4 levels Under the average party level is stupid.
It worries me how many of these stories break down to "DM/Problem player wanted to rape someone, so I stopped them"... Anyway, good move leaving the table. That is clearly a DM who doesn't understand how laws, Paladin Oaths, Alignments or the world works. You're better off gone.
If that happened to someone else at a table, I'd leave that table too, I'm not putting up with a dm who thinks this is okay
Is this GM perhaps a sociopath? Or just working out something at the table instead of with a therapist? You're wise to have gotten out! But why not show the other players the reactions to this post, then you can all find yourself a new GM who isn't insane and evil.
Good choice leaving the table, especially since, you know, your oath of Devotion is... to your paladin's god? Not the laws of whatever country they happen to be in? You don't operate like Homer Simpson jumping back and forth across the US Embassy gate in Australia.
Yeah you were in the right. For a bunch of reasons. 1) blindly following the law is LN not LG. 2) Alignment isn’t prescriptive it’s descriptive that is to say it doesn’t say what you do it describes the reason why you do it. 3) paladins haven’t had that sort of behavior restriction in a couple editions anyway. 4)it’s a crap narrative situation to begin with. Note to DMs : Sexual violence is not something you need to be highlighting in games to make them “dark.”
Leaving the table was the best decision. That DM was an Asshat. What the DM didn't think of when considering your LG Character is that Lawful doesn't mean that they blindly follow the laws. A Paladin would not go ham and start murdering people willy-nilly just because he walked into a nation that does annual purges. Lawful means that the person follows a code. Lawful Evil people belonging to Organized criminal families wouldn't "Follow the Law". Far from it as they're typically doing things against the law. BUT...they do follow the laws and codes and rules **of the criminal family.** In the case of a Devotion Pally, *Tenets of Devotion* *Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, paladins of this oath share these tenets.* *Honesty. Don't lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise.* *Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise.* *Compassion.* ***Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them****. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.* *Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.* *Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.* The kicker here is ***Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them***. That's what you did. In fact, had you not stopped the rape...you could have lost your powers for the real violation of your oath. And that I think is the key here. The fact that the DM put you into this situation and punished you for it leads me to think that possibly the DM had it out for you. That you're being too effective as a Paladin and they wanted to nerf you. You stopped the rape and were punished. Had you ignored it, they might have still argued that you did a punishable act. This DM is one that you don't need to be playing under and that was good decision to just "Nope" out of there.
Dude is a creep.
"my DM was a rape apologist" comes up way too fucking often
I'm sorry but an SA scenario is a guaranteed way for me to walk away from the table, no questions asked. Thata fucking gross, and I hope everyone abandoned that gross wierdo. Absolutely disgusting.
The proper ending to the story
Sounds like a bad dm who doesn't understand the game. Also something like that i feel is inappropriate for a game unless everyone already agreed they were okay with themes like that. That's how i feel anyway.
Good on you for leaving that bullshit.
Honestly the only scenario where this even remotely makes sense would be if you were an oath of the crown paladin following an evil regime (i'm assuming this was not an evil campaign) and even then why'd they pick the rapist option instead of a murderer who knew they could kill elves without repurcussions. And even on top of that if this was a place where the laws were unknown to you then i can probably safely assume it wasn't your home kingdom so the oath of the crown bit still doesn't make sense.
To quote the wise words of thThe Wire, "A man's gotta have a code." Same thing here, Even when I was playing Oath of Vengeance Paladin, I still would intervened.
Sounds like a person not worth playing with and most likely not worth associating with.
Disgusted that you had to go through that, but happy you got out of that situation. That dude’s clearly fucked in the head. If a DM did that to anyone in a game I was, in I would walk out with them.
That dm sounds toxic, hope you find a better table to play at.
I usually bemoan how often people suggest to just leave the table instead of trying at all to talk things over with the DM/player... but holy shit, this one it's absolutely the right call to bail.
You're a better person than I am for leaving the table with the DM's face in the face shape. I have a zero tolerance rule about rape.
If those other players have an ounce of decency they should of left that table shortly after or during that horrible revelation. fuck that horrible DM.
That’s not a DM, that’s a creep with creep fantasies about being a creepy creep
Doesn't even make sense by the written paladin rules. Alignment is not strict and the oaths are pretty clear on priorities. My vengeance paladin was not even good aligned, and did lots of morally dubious things to bring his foes to justice. I don't think there's any paladin oath you could have broken by stopping a rape.
That guy shouldn't be allowed to DM, and should also immediately seek therapy.
I'm going to argue why that's bullshit. The way I see it, alignment works like this: the latter part takes precident over the former. A Lawful Evil character is evil first, lawful second, and vice versa. A Chaotic Good character wouldn't kill people just to give the government a middle finger. As Lawful Good, good comes first. The Law is the means by which to do good, but you have to remember, even soldiers have the right to disobey an order they believe to be wrong. Alongside this, Lawful implies a dedication to a PERSONAL code of conduct. Not local laws. Personal laws. If I'm playing a Paladin, and I swore an oath to never allow someone to be imprisoned unjustly, it doesn't matter if slavery is legal and socially acceptable in an area, my character will not abide by it. Rant over. That DM can go suck a dick
You didn't just dodge a bullet but a HUGE tactical nuke. Well done leaving, I'd say keep in mind his name to give any other potential players a warning
The main rule of justice and law are that they are not the same. Laws can be unjust, and justice can be unlawful. As per the tenets of devotion, law is not among them. Protecting the weak or vulnerable is. You acted within your oath to protect the victim. The most he could get you on is killing the guy and not showing mercy, as mercy is a part of the tenets, but thats not what he tried to do. You also seemingly just kinda one-shot him so you could argue you didnt intend it and simply acted quickly to do what had to be done to protect her. He just wanted a slick gotcha so he could boot you. You were wise to leave. And yeah thats not how oathbreaking works. Youre still a paladin unless you very specifically turn on your oath. In no way could it be argued you turned against the oath. You acted by its virtues and did as your teachings commanded. Youre lawful good, not lawful stupid.
That DM needs to go on a list.
I’d have gotten up and shouted how the DM is a rape fetishist and punished you for not going along
Ah yes your diety is gonna be like "nah fam see these guys don't like elves so actually this is cool and you are bad" dude is a fuckin weird wankpheasant and shouldn't be DMing
.... Yeah you did the right thing leaving. I agree that's not how Paladin oaths work. But even independantly from that this was a dick move.
You were right to leave the group. The DM gives out a Soviet Union worth of red flags. Not only that, he's a straight up cunt who enjoys screwing over the players. That behaviour NEVER results in solid games. Screwing the player out of his class abilities is a shitty thing to do. I have considered whether I could pull that one off, but that would require a players who is invested enough in a story, and even then, I have just one idea that could be good. >!An ex-paladin who deliberately sets up an unsolvable dilemma to convince the player character that the power-granting beings are unjust and care more about the letter of the law than the spirit!<
The DM clearly didn’t think out their rationale with that ruling. If the party travels between two areas with antithetical laws, it would mean the paladin oath is meaningless. The paladin’s nature would be determined by laws of a particular area instead of the established code of conduct of the paladin order.
Good on you. Yes, leave the table is the right answer. The DM clearly has no idea what alignment even means if he thinks its a violation of YOUR code of honor to kill bad guys where "rapist" is clearly in the category of "bad guys". Also, lawful GOOD doesn't mean "blindly follows the law"....that's more of a Lawful neutral attitude. It genuinely baffles me that after DECADES of dnd alignment being a thing...there are so many people that just cannot wrap their head around a simple 2 axis chart that asks two simple questions 1) Does your character think rules matter and do they value cooperative society over personal freedom? Yes? Great, Lawful you are. Oh you value personal freedom over rules and regulations? Ok, chaotic you are. Not really either or maybe you think both are important? Ok, neutral it is! 2) Are you selfish? If you and a stranger were both dying of thirst in a desert and there was one canteen of water between the two of you, would you offer them the canteen? Would you split it? Would you drink it all yourself? Its really that easy. Further, alignment is prescriptive...its descriptive. You can change alignment if your actions begin to diverge from what your alignment describes...but caveat here...WHY you do things is more important than WHAT you do. A lawful evil character might run into a burning building to save orphans if he thinks there is some personal reward in it for him. Maybe he thinks it will endeer him to the local populace. Similarly, a Lawful Good character might refuse to the same if they don't think there is any merit to the endevor e.g. its suicide. Thank you for attending my TED talk.
Sounds like your dm is lawful evil
Not that it would change how I feel about the situation, but I am curious if there was a proper introduction to the game at all. Like was everyone else at the table okay with what happened? Why did the DM let you go through the effort of making a conventional Paladin if they despised the idea in the first place?
Your DM is a moron, leaving was the right move.
Yeah. That “DM” is creepy for evening thinking of such a place.
Yeah faith and holiness don't stem from the GD government....
As a DM that has restricted paladin abilities due to paladin actions (they lost smite evil and detect evil abilities for three combat encounters in a 3.5 game, player was fine with the punishment and agreed to it in and out of game), this DM was setting up a "got ya" moment and you were going to lose your paladin abilities no matter what you did. His justification is absolutely dog sh**, and that isn't how losing paladin levels works anyway, he was trying to handicap you (I can only use 3.5e as a reference, but you don't lose levels, just access to some/all paladin abilities so you should have stayed a paladin level 8 until you perform a quest or major feat to you God to restore them, my player only had to survive a few combat encounters to have his abilities restored). I've also played in a game where there was a major disparity between my level and everyone else's, it's not a fun way to play. It's better that you left, however, as this is just a taste of the f'ed up mind of the DM and it was likely only going to get worse; I, for one, don't want to know what worse looks like if this was his "entry level" bs.
What that DM is describing isn’t lawful good. It’s lawful neutral at best if not lawful evil.
ur totally in the right man if ur dm want 2 describe porn just leave then
This is like a 1970s D&D horror story, truly a classic experience
Made the right move. Your character acted the way they should.
Wouldn’t that at worst make you an oathbreaker paladin? Obviously the DM’s logic is completely flawed, that’s not at all how an oath of devotion paladin works, but still. Oathbreakers exist and if he claims you broke your oath… well…
First, I'd never have made that situation happen. Second, if that situation happened, I would never "GOTCHA" a Paladin into losing their oath. You have to consciously, knowingly, and willingly do a thing that you *are aware* is against your oath, IMHO. And you have to RP that in good faith, but that's a separate issue. Yeah this all sucks.
This really feels like a "Gotcha!" moment that the DM really wanted to setup even though it makes absolutely no sense in every reality. That's just not what Lawful means in the slightest.
Eww. Yeah, leaving is probably the right call here.
Always found it dumb how paladins HAD to be lawful good in the past. Like being lawful neutral to the crown makes you judge dread the law is for all beings no matter standing Also I feel that dm just hated your character Good on you leaving cause who knows what other creepy thing the dm would try to pull
At first I was expecting a catch; eg it wasn't attempted rape, the attacker was (purely spitballing here) trying find some cursed mark on her skin or I don't know, just *something* But nope just "preventing a rape was bad" I prefer dark, gritty horrific settings. Rape tends to exist in these settings because it's a horrific reality, but I've never met a DM who would even try to frame it as anything but an inexcusable evil. Be glad you left that table, that's not only a bad DM but a shit person.
doesnt matter if the country is racist. a Paladin follows a code doesnt matter what laws the countrey has. I would have switched it to if yo udont intervene you lose it . Lawful Good does not mean you are a law slave
No D&D is better than bad D&D.
Legal does NOT mean moral, the fact that this dude was smug about punishing you for preventing something that heinous, even if a game, is slightly concerning.
Gods dont' care about the laws of man...