So, I know I haven't mentioned it in awhile, but my
D&D campaign, The 8 Towers, is going relatively well.
Granted all the characters are still 1st level, but
all in all, I have gotten the plot started and things
seem on track for the most part.
The characters are in the country of Quar in the city
of Gyda. Quar is a country whose military strength has
brought it independence and land, and its prosperity
springs from its huge quarries and mines. It has a
large wall surrounding the entire country much like
the Great Wall of China except that it is round and
connected. This wall was created by Iso, a neighboring
city-state that made the wall in thanks and as payment
for the raw materials needed for its technologies.
Quar'�s military strength extends from the use of
Battletitan cavalry units. Battletitans are pretty
much slightly larger raptors. Quar has many
Battletitan ranches in its cities, and the second
largest of these cities is Gyda. Gyda is a quiet town
that offers the second most Battletitans for use in
the military in the country.
In Gyda last session, the players had some inter-party
conflict. Its tough having two paladins in a party,
especially if one of them is an exalted paladin. After
looting some major magic items that had been stolen,
the party finds out whom they belong to. Immediately
the paladins, as they should being Lawful Good and
all, demand that they return the items. The party's
Warforged (living construct) artificer, who knows
nothing but how to be efficient, demands they use the
items to finish out the quest so more items don't get
stolen, then return them. The three of them started
arguing as to what they should do. The other party
members didn�t say much. The role-playing was
excellent until the exalted paladin, and shortly
thereafter, the other paladin drew their swords and
attacked the Warforged. Now, granted the Warforged
said that the exalted paladin�s god had nothing to do
with the situation that, I guess, could be considered
an insult, but I don�t see a Lawful Good character
attacking someone just because they insulted someone.
Needless to say, there was a battle and the Warforged
was put to the ground. The Items were then returned to
their rightful owner immediately. That is where the
session left off.
Tomorrow, I have to run this game and I have yet to
decide what to do. I have a few options.
1. Do it video game style and rewind and do it again.
2. Tell the Warforged player to make a new character.
3. Let the Warforged wake up and see where things go.
I never like to do 1 because this is not a videogame.
3 is risky and could make things worse. So I think I
will be doing 2. Either way, all three characters are
going to be chastised about the whole situation.
Should be interesting.
brutal josh. Here's what I think you should do though:
ReplyDeleteLoss of paladin status. plain and simple. their choices were obviously opposed to their alignment, and you know how gods take to that. (although if I remember, the gods are trapped, right..?) so maybe...
well, back up. where do they get their powers? ya know what... you need to get on AIM buddy. lol.
level 1!! dude, I'll be back in town NEXT WEEK. WAIT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I heart you josh. plz. woot.
I just happened upon your blog, and i have some experience running d&d games so here's my 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteWithout being there, i can't say whether the palis did the right thing or not, but the phb is pretty clear. now i don't know about exalted palis, but normal palis only lose their status if they willfully commit an evil act or grossly violate their code.
Attacking the warforged doesn't have to be evil, even if the the warforged is good. (and if the warforged was good, he should have agreed to return the items anyway)
the were certainly respecting lawful authority by returning the items. it doesn't sound like the palis lied, cheated or did anything underhanded.
they were helping out the poor guy whose items were stolen.
When pali problems came up in my game, it was because my players and me all had different ideas about how a pali should act. it ended up being my fault because i hadn't spelled out the pali code for them. imho, thats what you need to do - give them a code to follow and see how they do. you may need two codes because of the exalted pali.
good luck and happy gaming!
ouch! glad i'm not in your shoes dude! but if i were i'd consider whether or not the paladins were threatened or if they threatened the artificer first.
ReplyDeleteand btw, what's a 1st lvl artificer doing going up against 2 palis?
The Paladins threatend and attacked the artificer first. I think that leans it a little more toward evil. I do agree with the code idea. I think for the exalted pali though, it would be the dogma of their god.
ReplyDeleteI've refrained from posting because I wanted to hear what people had to say, but that's not how I remember it.
ReplyDeleteWhen we told Ed we wanted to take the stuff back, he said he'd stop us "with force if necessary". You can't really blame us for taking his threat seriously.
That is true.
ReplyDelete