The Falling Paladin

[killerjester]

Meet Sir Oren, the exalted paladin.

Photo cred: Remainaery

Sir Oren is a servant of justice and a paragon of the righteous, bound by duty to seek and wipe out all things evil. He has also taken a vow of poverty as per the rules of 3.5 PHB and BoED. Sir Oren has been through many trials of character, but has always sought to uphold the laws and morals he holds dear in his heart. Play the role of an evil, conniving DM bent of stripping Sir Oren of his paladin class features or his vow of poverty (or both!). Your task is to present a scenario that challenges our titular paladin, and I, or anyone else who cares to, will try to think of a way out of that scenario, special abilities intact.

Here are the relevant texts.

Spoiler: Paladin's Code

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Spoiler: Vow of Poverty

To fulfill your vow, you must not own or use any material possessions, with the following exceptions: You may carry and use ordinary (neither magic nor masterwork) simple weapons, usually just a quarterstaff that serves as a walking stick. You may wear simple clothes (usually just a homespun robe, possibly also including a hat and sandals) with no magical properties. You may carry enough food to sustain you for one day in a simple (nonmagic) sack or bag. You may carry and use a spell component pouch. You may not use any magic item of any sort, though you can benefit from magic items used on your behalf—you can drink a potion of cure serious wounds a friend gives you, receive a spell cast from a wand, scroll, or staff, or ride on your companion’s ebony fly.You may not, however, “borrow” a cloak of resistance or any other magic item from a companion for even a single round, nor may you yourself cast a spell from a scroll, wand, or staff.

A few final notes.

1) The presented scenario must be

raw

legal; no DM fiat special effects.

2) Because it would be pointless to do otherwise, evil will be defined as it is in the BoVD. With the very important added note that what another creature/character does as a direct response to the Sir Oren's actions doesn't weigh on the paladin's soul; i.e. if a Blackguard has a hostage at blade-point and says "submit or die," the Blackguard stabbing the hostage and killing him because the Sir Oren didn't surrender weighs against the Blackguard, not our beloved paladin.

That's it then. Let's try to keep this fun.

[Mitillos]

Scenario: Oren finds himself in a vast wasteland, during his travels. There are no settlements for miles. He chances upon a group of nomads, who were savagely attacked by Hoppy, the deadly half-kangaroo half-man, and are slowly dying. Due to the brutality of the attack, first aid cannot help the nomads. There are more nomads than Sir Oren has available curative spells. There are enough scrolls of curative spells to heal everyone, but none of the nomads know how to use them, nor can they cast any curative magic of their own. (Hoppy left the scrolls to taunt Sir Oren, after stealing all the potions that the nomads had.) Sir Oren can use the scrolls, and is aware of this. He also has enough time to help everyone, but only if he starts pretty much immediately. Every nomad whom Sir Oren helps will thank him and beg him to also help the rest of the nomads. They will also know that Sir Oren is capable of using the scrolls, since Hoppy told them, before mauling them.

Sir Oren can refuse to use the scrolls, thus not helping those in need, and violating the Paladin's Code, or he can use the scrolls and violate his vow of poverty.

Moving the nomads to another place, where they can receive healing is out of the question, given the time available, and the distances involved.

[killerjester]

Sir Oren casts his curative spells on the more severe injuries, and spends the rest of his turns trying to stop the bleeding and stabilize the other nomads with heal checks.

Due to the brutality of the attack, first aid cannot help the nomads.

Very serious injuries have difficult, but still possible, first aid DCs (at least, in RAW they do). One of the variant rules gives some direction into how high the DC should be for a serious injury. But beyond that, at the end of the day Sir Oren still feels in his heart that he made an honest effort in attending to the wounds of the nomads (even if he doesn't save everyone, as it was a devastating attack). The paladin resolves to track down Hoppy and bring him to answer for his crimes against these wayward travelers.

[Mitillos]

Well, you say possible, but this depends on the level of the character in question. You haven't really given enough info on Sir Oren, and what he can or cannot do.
Also, I disagree that this was an honest effort. Sir Oren knew that it was possible for him to save everyone, yet he decided to not take the actions which would allow this.

As for tracking down Hoppy, I sympathise, but that may turn out to be impossible. Last time my character saw him, he had greater invisibility, could move 80 ft per round, had the Run feat available and could down a lvl 7 character with one attack. We all fear and hate Hoppy.

Incidentally, whilst this thread is going, I don't suppose there's any interest in a (3.5e) D&D game in Mish Mash?

[Nicholas1024]

After a harrowing adventure, Sir Oren and the rest of the party have rescued the kidnapped heir and captured the sorcerer responsible, and are currently transporting both back to the capital, where said heir will be crowned king, and the villain will be summarily executed.

However, upon arriving back at the palace, Sir Oren stumbles on a couple of corrupt nobles, who inadvertently reveal that due to magical means, the sorcerer and the prince have actually swapped places. If nothing is done, the villain will be the one crowned king, while the innocent prince is put to death. Unfortunately, before Oren can warn anyone, he's spotted and promptly plane-shifted to an uninhabited demiplane.

The execution/crowning are both scheduled to take place within the day. Oren has no means of transport off of the demiplane, and nobody is likely to know that he's gone or find out about the plot before it's too late. His only relevant magical resource is a scroll of sending that was on a corpse nearby (an unfortunate soul that was left to starve to death, and couldn't actually use the scroll that might save his life.) His choices are to either let an innocent man die and a monster gain control of a nation, or violate his vow of poverty by using the scroll to warn everyone of the plot.

[JDGA]

Have you been playing too much I Have 1 Day?

Also D&D sounds like an inspired idea, though I would like to remind everyone that I don't think I've ever seen a tabletop RPG on MishMash get anywhere near completion.