Paladino como um exemplo
Considere esta história no fórum do Giant no Playground :
Due to setting off a trap, my paladin/crusader and some his comrades were trapped in a solid wall of force that was filling up with a mist that was causing us drowning checks. Our DM was being nice and making it a flat DC 16 fort check instead of a steadily rising con Check, and it took two failure to drop us unconscious.
Through trial and experimentation, we discovered that my crusaders Foehammer and Mountain Hammer maneuvers would crack the shell long enough to get one person out. So, every turn, I cracked the wall, and one person would squeeze through the opening. First out was the wizard, who had failed two saves and had to be thrown. Then the cleric, to whom the same thing had happened. Because they were lying there inert, I sent the monk (trained in heal) out there to help them. At this point, the fighter who was in there, helping me, dropped unconscious due to failed saves. The DM was not being nice to me…I made save after save trying to figure out a way to strike the wall and hurl the fighter out. It ended in me managing to put the fellow on my shoulder, slam the wall with a warhammer, and toss him out. The round I did that in, I got my first failed fort save, upon which my DM said I could feel my lungs filling with water. Still, I was able to hurl my friend out of the wall of death and pick up the gear I’d dropped. Armed and ready, I make my next fort save.
Nat 1. I drop unconscious. IRL, the group panics. And I mean they PANIC. I have been playing the laid-back moral compass of the group…My paladin didn’t police, but he was kind and noble and to many of them, a bit of an innocent…he was a farm-raised boy and it reflected in the way he treated things and people. They didn’t want him dead. Well, the rogue did, but that’s because the player hates me IRL (he’s the person my inevitable conflict thread was about). The swashbuckler’s player almost started crying. And then we switched to the portion of the party that was pursuing a hag coven.
I sat back and actually smiled, because you know what? How much of a better death can a Paladin 5/Crusader 1 with an utter devotion to his friends and his god ask for? I saved every single person in that orb with my conviction and devotion to my god, hurling a fully armored fighter to safety with my lungs filled with water before giving in.
[the paladin’s player steps outside for a break, and returns to discover the party found a way to save him.]
While the cleric and monk and wizard are all thanking me, we hear the swashbuckler’s character scream in the distance. Having recently regained consciousness, I hit myself with lay on hands, charges of a cure mod wand, and start running. The cleric catches up to me and says
Cleric: “Haven’t you done enough heroics for the day?”
Paladin, stonefaced, with water dripping off his face and still coughing up liquid as he runs: “Nope. Paladin.”
Isso “Não. Paladino ”, para mim, capta tudo o que um Paladino deveria ser. Um paladino não quer forçar seus camaradas a se conformar com seus juramentos; ele não é um evangelista ou demagogo. Ele é um exemplo . Um exemplo de tudo o que a Lei e o Bem podem fazer pelo mundo. Ele pode respeitar aliados que usam outros métodos para alcançar o Bem; ele pode respeitar aliados para quem o bem não é o primeiro objetivo deles na vida, desde que eles não sejam o mal. Mas para si mesmo, ele é o bastião inflexível e inabalável do Bem. Ele diz a você que ele está vindo, ele joga com todas as suas cartas na mesa, e ele nunca, nunca desiste.
E, em última análise, os Paladinos não estão em dívida com nenhuma organização, fé ou mesmo deus: eles podem se unir a outros que têm a mesma opinião, eles podem adorar as divindades que eles acham que alcançarão o Mais Bom, mas no final eles responder a bondade em si. Se eles descobrirem corrupção dentro de sua igreja, ou males secretos no plano de seu deus, eles estão obrigados a deixar aquela igreja, abandonar esse deus e continuar a buscar o Bem.
Paladinos e Fé
Esse é o ideal, de qualquer maneira. É para isso que um Paladino bem jogado deve lutar: e ele não deveria, pelo menos inicialmente, tê-lo alcançado. Um paladino só é interessante se ele vacilar, se adivinhar e assim por diante. Para trazer outra citação:
Book: I've been out of the abbey two days. I've beaten a lawman senseless. Fallen in with criminals. I watched the captain shoot the man I swore to protect. And I'm not even sure if I think he was wrong.
Inara: [softly] Shepherd...
Book: I believe I just... I think I'm on the wrong ship.
Inara: Maybe. Or maybe you're exactly where you ought to be.
É bem assim que seu paladino deve estar em um dia ruim. E se ele estiver fazendo as coisas corretamente, haverá dias ruins.
Paladinos e Queda
Existem várias maneiras de lidar com o Falling. Pessoalmente, tenho a tendência de abolir completamente a mecânica: uma Queda ocorre apenas quando narrativamente apropriada, e isso é feito em consulta com o jogador do Paladino. Um Paladino Caído é sempre apanhado por algum outro grande poder, tipicamente o Mal que o corrompeu.
Mas essa não é a única abordagem. Outro que eu gosto, embora nunca tenha acontecido em um dos meus próprios jogos, é Falling for-broke. O Paladino está, por definição, se segurando, e cai quando ele pára de fazê-lo: mas quando ele faz isso, ele é uma coisa terrível de se ver.
Por exemplo, outra publicação Gigante no recreio . Um culto estava desencadeando uma peste vil, eles capturaram o cultista da cabeça e precisavam saber onde o ritual seria completado, mas não conseguiram tirá-lo, nem mesmo quando começaram a usar a tortura e o paladino saiu em disparada. Quando ele retornou e descobriu que eles ainda não haviam recebido as informações, ele assumiu o interrogatório:
Cultist:
"Ha! I know who you are, Sir Peter Fairgrave; kingdom breaker, runaway child, father slayer. You can't threaten me: I know what you are. Your order, your God won't allow you to lay your hands on me, otherwise you'll fall, and you won't be able to help a soul."
Sir Peter:
sighs "You seem to be under the misconception about what I am, what I do. I am a paladin, that is true; but as a paladin I don't fear falling... I look forward to it."
The cultist shot a nervous look at the rest of the party, we were all looking at each other, not sure what was about to happen. The cultist opened his mouth to speak, but Sir Peter cut him off.
Sir Peter:
"As a paladin, I walk on a razor's edge. Not between good and evil, I could never be something like you, but between "law" and "justice". The "law" I follow doesn't permit me to harm you, but I could be "justified" in anything I did to you in order to save innocent lives. ANYTHING!"
"You don't know what it is like to be me. You don't know the pain of having to store all your anger, all your fury, all your sense of justice, and hold it inside you, all day every day for the rest of your life. Doing the right thing doesn't mean I get to stop all evil, I just get to trim it when it becomes overgrown. The path I walk is not about vengeance, or what's right; it's about moderation in the face of power, restraint and compassion for scum like you.
"This is why paladins don't fear falling. We don't spend all day looking for ways to prevent ourselves from doing evil and giving in to the darkness -- we actively seek it out. Every time we face evil, we ask ourselves, 'Is this the threat that I'm going to give it all up for? Is this what I am going to give up my ability to help others in the future, in order to bring it down now. Is this the evil that I am willing to forsake my God and my power to stop?!'".
At this point, he stands up suddenly and swings his arm against the chair he was sitting on. Sending it flying and shattered against a wall, he then kicks over the chair the cultist was sitting on, he leaps and straddles his chest, flinging him about for a few seconds in pure rage, before calming once more.
He looks the cultist straight in the face, both their noses just inches from each other.
"What you should be asking yourself now, what you really need to be thinking about, is: 'Is what I'm doing something that will make this guy want to fall?' Because you should know that once I fall, all those rules which protect you from me are gone. No longer will I be able to be stopped by you, or by my order, or by my God. If I give everything, and I mean give everything, I will never stop. If you escape me today, I will hunt you down and grab you into the pits of hell myself. Even if that means that I have to invoke the wrath of every demon in creation, just so they throw open a pit and drag me down where I stand, because when they do drag me down, I will make sure that my fists are wrapped firmly around your ankles and you go down with me. I want you to listen to me now, and I mean really listen, because Hell truly hath no fury like a paladin scorned."
"So I ask you, one last time: tell me where the other rituals are being held, or I swear to all on high that I will fall, and fall hard, just so I can show you what it is that paladin truly keeps his code in order to hold back..."
At this point the player, Chris, just stops talking and looks at us. We are all kind of stunned by his speech, naturally.
He just picks up a D20, looks at the DM and says "I wish to roll intimidate."
A chave é que Falling não é uma armadilha e não é uma punição por interpretações ruins. A Queda é uma construção narrativa que supostamente é a altura do drama. Ele precisa realizar algo grande: retirar um PC de sua capacidade de fazer qualquer coisa não faz isso. Esta é uma das maiores falhas do 3.5, na minha opinião, e você deve conversar com seu mestre sobre como corrigir isso.
Falando de seu mestre ...
Meu último conselho é, certifique-se de que seu mestre esteja envolvido nisso. Muitos Mestres têm idéias pré-concebidas muito estreitas sobre o que faz um Paladino. Alguns Mestres não deixam você evitar ser um pau-na-lama. Eu recomendaria strongmente evitar a classe Paladin com esses DMs. Na verdade, eu provavelmente evitaria os jogos deles, pessoalmente.