Over all Grord's whining, I missed it. Thankfully we have a calm, collected mind to point it out to us in the form of DonSampson.

Do we think it is good aligned and keeping with the paladin's code to summon neutral, unenvolved sentient being to be our cannon fodder? Against its will?

Angels and Archons would want to help. Elementals? Are they sentient? Maybe they should be talked about too. However, conjurer's don't have a Paladin's Code anyway.

Your average pious uncaballed paladin would probably not consider summoning sentient creatures. It’s just too close to the edge of what’s probably “the right thing to do.”

Now a Maran may feel differently. They tend to be of the “by any means necessary” variety and probably wouldn’t give it too much thought unless they were religion-specified to “respect life” or something.

By a similar token, a Trib paladin puts neutral guards at risk constantly. Should he be healing his guards, or is he off the hook because they’re on the clock?

>Your average pious uncaballed paladin would probably not
>consider summoning sentient creatures. It’s just too close
>to the edge of what’s probably “the right thing to do.”
>
>Now a Maran may feel differently. They tend to be of the “by
>any means necessary” variety and probably wouldn’t give it
>too much thought unless they were religion-specified to
>“respect life” or something.

Couple things. Maran paladins must still follow the paladin's code. Also, Maran are definitely NOT "by any means necessary" and never, that I know of, have they been. That's more along the lines of a Muhadin religion rather than being a Maran. By any means necessary implies killing good guild guards for instance. I'll go further to add that if a Maran is EVER "not giving it much tought" than they are on the path to darkness the Acolyte is supposed to help them with.

>By a similar token, a Trib paladin puts neutral guards at risk
>constantly. Should he be healing his guards, or is he off the
>hook because they’re on the clock?

The guard, presumably, chose the profession of guard. However, yeah, I do think paladins should be healing their guards during down time. Better yet, dismissing them to R&R.

PS: This situation, to me, seems very much like a cop grabbing a random citizen to use as a meat shield vs. armed murderers. Even better: like Captain America doing it.

Paladin Code should trump Maran dogma. That said, you have a skewed view on what Maran actually means, since the Paladin Code and Maran Creed actually agree on this point.

Maran isn't about killing evil at all costs. It's about standing between evil and the innocent that they would oppress. The first line of the Maran Creed is something like "We stand as the protectors of the Light". Protectors of Light being the focus, not killers of darkness. When it does talk about killing, it talks about it as a means to protect others.

It even goes on to be careful about who and how you hunt. Basically it warns that if you act like an evil jerk you might accidentally become one. In short, it explicitly warns against looking at the war as "by any means necessary".

As far as the Paladin Code, that one's pretty obvious. A Paladin (that chooses to continue following the Paladin Code), should not be putting others into harms way, nor should he allow others to be hurt to save himself.

EDIT: Regarding your question about Paladin's and their guards. There's nothing wrong with a Paladin using them, just like any other ally. But if the Paladin ever lets the guards live to save his own ass, he should be smacked down. Guards are people too.


Bottom line: Paladins are a powerful class out of the box. Instead of glaring weaknesses (apart from vuln_bash), Paladins restrictions are mostly RP-related. If you ignore those RP restrictions, then you end up with an OP character that's just a pain in the ass.