Paladin travel with evil people

[Gordan]

Now. i'm not playing a paladin myself so this is not a personal complain or else but is something i wish to discuss abaut

Paladins cant travel with evil persons as they doing soo risk to loose paladin status, they can use detecte evil for it and see  the alligment of people araund , it have sense if he travel with necromancer who hide thier powers or other evil entiny and individual, but i think all evil chars its a not stay araund is not great from a RP point of view, its just a giant (You cant travel with them) and stop there.

I think a paladin should know if there is evil in somone heart and see if can find redeption, many people play evil chars and they they are just  playing rude and brutal chars but not truly evil that see their good above the good of others, i think is compassion that made a char good or evil and i think a paladin if can sense evil should also not only smite it or avoid ot, but try to change it

a paladin shoud get closer to the evil char and show them there is a better way  if the char can have redemption, of course if a paladin find out is beyond any redeption  Let him Smite..but i think the paladin as a force of retribution that bring others is a better way is some kind of Good RP we should not denie

all personal opinion of course, tell me what you think.

[Iconoclast]

Putting an ambiguous gray area in a very rigid and dogmatic class is counterproductive to me. Evil is evil, the only gray area is how evil (murderers vs bandits). There is nothing stopping you from trying to redeem a bad guy, but imo a Paladin should not be doing anything to HELP that evil person (gold, xp, etc.) until they are redeemed, whats to stop them from just paying lip service and going back to their old ways? There is nothing stopping you from interacting with the evil person or putting them on a path to goodness, but a path to redemption is something that someone needs to travel on their own. I am sure the DMs would be willing to alignment shift someone with documentation and actions, I have personally had a LE character turned LN due entirely to in game, other player driven, actions.

Paladins have exceptional powers and their LG and dogma has always been a way of balancing their mechanical bonuses with roleplay requirements. Those requirements are not a penalty, and they can be used to great effect to flavor your character.

Good aligned Clerics and Fighters exist to work around the exact issues you mentioned.

[VanillaPudding]

a paladin shoud get closer to the evil char and show them there is a better way  if the char can have redemption, of course if a paladin find out is beyond any redeption  Let him Smite..but i think the paladin as a force of retribution that bring others is a better way is some kind of Good RP we should not denie

You're right in some sense, sure, but they can do  exactly this without doing quests or whatever. The whole point of avoiding that is that you're effectively empowering said evil force even if they aren't showing it at the moment. If you desire to have someone repent and change their ways, feel free to do so with them in a tavern or in the open world and notify DMs of your intentions. If said evil player isn't just telling lies or avoiding the smite (not likely) then you'll probably find some cool reward in the journey. There is no need for questing and gaining experience throughout this however. :)

[Paintman]

I personally have an extremely evil characters find redemption and they did so without questing or spending time in quests with paladins. The final journey also was spent beside someone who guided him towards it. But it was done with a great personal sacrifice from all involved and the destruction of a powerful relic. So it's not a matter of spending time and questing with evil people. If a paladin wants to change someone to good, that's a choice they need to make and a path that needs to be pushed without an obvious benefit being seen. I my opinion.

If this was to change. I would recommend oaths entirely designed about redeeming others and falling if such was not done within a reasonable timeframe.

[Hierophant]

Paladins can freely travel with evil characters, they just can't go smash quests with them. Nazey and I played a paladin/evil character duo where he was hoping to redeem my character once he saw the blackness in his heart! So yeah, as long as you're actively roleplaying your intentions to redeem this person or help them change their ways, I think it's fine. But don't go smash quests with evil as there is no 'greater good' moral code with paladins. Evil is evil, good is good.

[Mushroom Mushroom]

Evil characters have certainly done something vile, wicked, and detrimental to the good of mankind.

Your job as a paladin is to investigate and expunge. If you think they can be redeemed after investigating their foul, horrid sins- that is the choice of your PC, but a paladin is the sword of justice, not the hand of mercy.

Just my opinion.

[Thricefold]

I think such interaction is much more complex and depends on numerous factors:
What order does the paladin belong to?
What are the crimes of the evil character?
Which relationship have the two?
Do the acts of the Evil character break any laws?

I can think of multiple scenarios where an evil character could be toleratated by a paladin.

[SamB123]

The central problem has nothing to do with the evil character, and everything to do with paladin's Detect Evil. This is the only spell or ability on the server that lets you metagame if someone is evil.

[Ironside]

It is not metagaming to use detect evil to learn someone's alignment.  We expect players of an evil alignment to have an actual reason for that choice; and the supernatural ability of the paladin class to detect one's burden of sin is not an OOC mechanic. 

However, it isn't really the role of the EfU paladin to reform people so much as to wield this gift of sight as a prejudice and weapon against them.  We are not likely to budge on this stance.  Paladins should not be aiding and abetting evil PCs, they should not be buying from evil PCs in stores, they should not be questing with them, etc etc...

It isn't going to change.