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Gassire posted:Honestly I've just tried to ignore this whole thing because I hate alignment. All I've ever really seen it used for is a shield when one party member decides to gently caress over the others. The paladin code is simple, Act with Honor in all Things. It's to their strength and to their weakness, and heroes are more defined by their weaknesses than their strengths. The poison sword scenario would definitely be grounds for permanent power loss, lying, cheating, using poison and likely killing someone in a non fatal game? All for his own vanity? What would a paladin have to do in your games to lose his powers? Yeah I was too lenient there. I was trying to come at it from a "not loving over the players but not being too lenient" angle and overshot. I probably would take a paladin's powers for that, thinking on it properly. I guess "using a poisoned sword to defeat a deadly opponent easily in a life-or-death situation" was where I was going, but even then I'm not sure. Maybe I'm harsher on paladins than I thought v  vIn any case, I think we ought to lay the whole paladin thing to rest as it is getting a bit overwrought.
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Apr 9, 2008 17:03
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green leaf salad posted:People love talking about paladins. They are apparently the most contentious subject this thread will ever know! We had a pretty great blow-out about alignment that one time, but I think it might have been a previous thread. This is a good one, though!
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Apr 9, 2008 17:07
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Winson_Paine posted:Welcome to being a nerd. You're about 16 years too late, buddy. 
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Apr 9, 2008 18:39
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Mr. Moon posted:It's less easy when you've been handed a poisoned sword to use in a tournament that would ensure your victory. I'd expect a paladin to refuse the poisoned sword in that case, even if it meant a harder fight for him. Bah! That's where the fun begins! In the tournament, then the Paladin draws the sword, but explicitly doesn't use it like a sword. I'd have a good ol' time with that. First fight- Shield bashing only! Take that -4 and kick rear end anyway! Second fight, use only the butt of the sword's handle! Third fight, flat of the sword! Fourth fight, fight with the sword still in the sheath! You can have a load of fun by loving with things, even as a Paladin. Edit: This is assuming you are told to use the sword or else. Kahrytes fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 9, 2008 |
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Apr 9, 2008 19:32
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This entire discussion is why every D&D game I've ever run has had the same house rule. I call it the "gently caress alignment" rule, and all of my players love me for it. For the few that have wanted to play as paladins, we've always worked out a code based on the deity that they worship. Turns out this is more or less the same method that 4th edition is going with. Which I find awesome.
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Apr 9, 2008 20:58
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NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS. Talk like this is why I stopped playing DnD. Too much letter of the law WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT THIS whining.
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Apr 9, 2008 21:16
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To be fair, revealing information to a clearly evil enemy that would result in further damage to reality and therefore untold innocents could be seen as an act of evil. O-Chul is trying to stonewall them wholesale, to give them nothing that could further their cause, while at the same time trying to stay alive so that he can help defend his people and his city, which he is sworn to do. To me, it sounds like tremendously reasonable behavior for a Paladin.
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Apr 10, 2008 01:55
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Ashcans posted:We had a pretty great blow-out about alignment that one time...
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Apr 10, 2008 04:20
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You guys seem to be quoting the PHB a lot, but you seem to have missed something:Player's Handbook posted:'Evil' implies hurting, oppressing and killing others 'Lying' also gets 4 paragraphs of its own in the Book of Vile Darkness. The last is really the only one relevant to this topic: Book of Vile Darkness posted:Lying is not necessarily an evil act, though it is an act that can easily be used for evil ends. Lying is so easy to use for evil purposes that most knightly codes and the creeds of many good religions forbid it altogether Now, I'll grant you that it may be banned by the Sapphire Guard's credo, but as a Paladin, would it be disallowed by the 12 Gods? The gods have to weigh each Paladin's faith as they go about their holy ways. Otherwise, O-Chul would have gotten zapped like Miko had, losing his powers. But he didn't, so the 12 Gods must not have seen his lie as an evil act, or, at least, they didn't see it to be a gross violation of the Paladin oath. Beyond that, O-Chul was being the quintessential self-sacrificing Paladin. Even if he knew that the lie would be an evil act, he was more than willing to shoulder the personal shame and dishonor to save the lives of the people he was sworn to protect, both to the Sapphire Guard and to the 12 Gods themselves. Even if he were to lose his powers, he'd continue to uphold his twin oaths.
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Apr 10, 2008 05:37
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Holy crap I get to do this.. New stripYou're all so wrapped up in fighting over draconian Paladin honor rules that you've forgotten about the actual comic! Good callbacks to the Start of Darkness here.
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Apr 11, 2008 15:01
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The Werle posted:Holy crap I get to do this.. Site's hammered. Any chance of a re-host on waffleimages or something?
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Apr 11, 2008 15:17
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Can do.
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Apr 11, 2008 15:22
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I really love that Red Cloak is not really any sort of toady. I mean, he's Xykon's right hand man, but he absolutely has his own goals and agenda and he certainly isn't above doing his best to control Xykon in his own way.
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Apr 11, 2008 15:38
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Ashcans posted:I really love that Red Cloak is not really any sort of toady. I mean, he's Xykon's right hand man, but he absolutely has his own goals and agenda and he certainly isn't above doing his best to control Xykon in his own way. (That "choose to call themselves good" is just about as thorough a "gently caress you, you hypocritical genocidal prigs" as anything the Goblins guy ever wrote.)
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Apr 11, 2008 15:56
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Nomenklatura posted:Did the graphic novels get into his back story? I haven't read them yet, and I really want to know what's driving the best character in the whole damned strip. Start of Darkness is pretty much entirely "The Redcloak Story". It covers his and Xykon's backgrounds in entirety, and is actually pretty tragic.
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Apr 11, 2008 15:57
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The Werle posted:Start of Darkness is pretty much entirely "The Redcloak Story". It covers his and Xykon's backgrounds in entirety, and is actually pretty tragic. Start of Darkness is actually really good. Much better than Origin of PCs.
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Apr 11, 2008 16:16
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terminal mehmet posted:Start of Darkness is actually really good. Much better than Origin of PCs. I agree, though I think one of the neater elements is that its improvements over Origin of the PCs are due to the nature of D&D games more than anything. The PC characters have fairly generic backgrounds and stories for a reason: they're PCs. I roll up a fighter in 15 minutes, come up with a couple hooks like cursed father and ancestral sword, and I'm done. You can create the basics of your situation, but ultimately the growth of your character is largely going to be limited by the scope of the DMs setting. Writing up silly back story beyond the basics may affect things in the future, but by and large you're going where the DM's exposition friendly Innkeeper or terrified villager directs you. On the other end of the spectrum, the villains are created by the DM. The DM has crafted political structures, cultures, wars, and more in order to set up villains who have motivations, reasons for their positions of power, and all that jazz. The DM is a storyteller, his characters are going to have more story.
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Apr 11, 2008 16:31
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Hmm. Having just found The Screwtape Letters as read by John Cleese, I'm hearing Redcloak as the illustrious Python. It's a good thing.
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Apr 11, 2008 17:06
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In some ways, Redcloak reminds me of Vetinari.
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Apr 12, 2008 00:24
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It's weird, I like redcloak and want his goblin nation to exist, but on the other hand, his god is evil and I like the paladins too, and hope they get their city back. How could a comic with such clearly defined moral alignments have so many shades of grey?
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Apr 12, 2008 05:49
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Lurdiak posted:How could a comic with such clearly defined moral alignments have so many shades of grey? Nonononononononono... Let's not get into that again.
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Apr 12, 2008 06:15
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Lurdiak posted:It's weird, I like redcloak and want his goblin nation to exist, but on the other hand, his god is evil and I like the paladins too, and hope they get their city back. His god, name aside, isn't really all that evil; he wants to use the Snarl as a bargaining tool to get goblinkind some parity with the other races.
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Apr 12, 2008 06:23
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Redcloak is evil, but he's not evil. Xykon is evil. Redcloak is partly just making the best of a truly lovely life situation, and avenging himself and his family and countless other goblins on the people of Azure City. If it was a human doing it to goblins, we'd call him a hero. Where you run into to trouble defending Redcloak though is that he teamed up with Xykon. Xykon is evil evil. He's twirling your mustache evil. He's the kind of evil that Doc Savage fought. Redcloak is just on the other side of the coin.
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Apr 12, 2008 10:00
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Foodpie posted:If it was a human doing it to goblins, we'd call him a hero. I think a human torturing a prisoner continuously knowing that it doesn't have any valuable information would be considered fairly evil. Redcloak is certainly not as self centered as Xykon, who's just evil for the enjoyment of it, but Redcloak is still a vengeful, hateful, murderous overlord.
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Apr 12, 2008 10:59
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Yeah, the main narrative of Start of Darkness is watching Redcloak slip from "evil because my alignment says I am" to truly evil due to a combination of bitterness and weakness of character. At one point he was essentially even in definition only, if left alone he'd have done no real harm, but after teaming with Xykon, turning Xykon into a Lich and making him even more powerful, and the final act of true villainy that occurs at the end of the book but I won't spell out to avoid spoilers and instead will replace with this run on sentence, he's pretty well completely damned himself. When he accuses O-Chul of savagery for not being willing to do the impossible for his people its a perfect example of how he's become a pro-goblin idealogue, his worldview is entirely twisted to see things only from the light of humans as savages.
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Apr 12, 2008 15:54
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...is that a re-animated zombie Thog? 
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Apr 13, 2008 07:20
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Scopedog posted:...is that a re-animated zombie Thog? Er... no? Thog got away with Nale, that's just a normal wight.
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Apr 13, 2008 10:10
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Holy hell, that's right! I totally forgot about the Linear Guild? What ever happened to them? It's been so long I can't remember.
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Apr 13, 2008 10:58
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SlimGoodbody posted:Holy hell, that's right! I totally forgot about the Linear Guild? What ever happened to them? It's been so long I can't remember. They'll probably be back. Also, remember: Thog's fangs point up, not down!
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Apr 13, 2008 13:27
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New Comic
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Apr 16, 2008 13:03
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Nice little burn on Miko, assuming that's who O-Chul means. Hard to imagine he's referencing anyone else though. I think I actually find O-Chul more interesting than a few of the main characters... which probably means he's going to die soon. NutShellBill fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Apr 16, 2008 |
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Apr 16, 2008 13:07
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LightWarden posted:New Comic Beautiful. I really like both O-Chul and the unknown creature, and somehow it seems appropriate that they'd get along. I really want to know what the creature is 
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Apr 16, 2008 14:01
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O-Chul makes a good point, babies now top my list of foods I won't eat too. I am pretty sure that the creature in the dark is not of this plain of existence though. It lumps all young creatures together as being weird to eat, veil and babies alike. I am guessing this means it comes from a place where characteristics are more important than physical form for defining what you are. So, some kind of outsider perhaps? Also, I wonder if it would eat eggs?
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Apr 16, 2008 23:11
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Hedgehog King posted:O-Chul makes a good point, babies now top my list of foods I won't eat too. I am pretty sure that the creature in the dark is not of this plain of existence though. It lumps all young creatures together as being weird to eat, veil and babies alike. I am guessing this means it comes from a place where characteristics are more important than physical form for defining what you are. So, some kind of outsider perhaps? Someone already hypothesized that it might just be a baby snarl of some sort. It's a compelling idea. 
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Apr 17, 2008 00:57
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ShadowCatboy posted:Someone already hypothesized that it might just be a baby snarl of some sort. It's a compelling idea. There is strong evidence against the baby snarl theory in Start of Darkness. Two stereotypical british safari hunters capture him in a jungle. They clearly recognize the species, and mention how suprised they are to find one in that part of the world, not to mention the fact that it can talk. edit: my own theory: We're looking in the wrong place. I'm betting it's going to be a well known monster from some other setting, not D&D. Something from Lovecraft would suprisingly fit the bill (crazy powerful, people who've seen it in the light recoil in terror, etc.), but it's been given speech and dumbed down for comedic effect. Mylan fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Apr 17, 2008 |
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Apr 17, 2008 05:43
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I'm kind of surprised that Xykon and Redcloak would let their Mysterious Monster hang out with a human. Maybe they're assuming that the monster is definitely Evil and will never find humans likeable or worth preserving. I think that this is going to bite them on the rear end when the monster turns out to be True Neutral. edit: Maybe it's a sentient Rift from Rifts! Scopedog fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Apr 17, 2008 |
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Apr 17, 2008 05:58
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Scopedog posted:I think that this is going to bite them on the rear end when the monster turns out to be True Neutral. Have we ever seen indication that it's actually evil? It might be theoretically netural or good, just too stupid and out of touch with the world to realise when it's being used for evil, even as it kills people.
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Apr 17, 2008 06:23
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MikeJF posted:Have we ever seen indication that it's actually evil? It might be theoretically netural or good, just too stupid and out of touch with the world to realise when it's being used for evil, even as it kills people. On the other hand, maybe it's just evil with an absurdly low intelligence stat.
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Apr 17, 2008 08:53
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Geshtal posted:On the other hand, maybe it's just evil with an absurdly low intelligence stat. Wait, that's not the initial assumption we were running with?
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Apr 17, 2008 14:00
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LightWarden posted:New Comic This is why you should never let girls into your secret club. 
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Apr 17, 2008 14:12
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