How can you play this game as a paladin (SPOILERS)?

Kneller

This is my first paladin run ever. I'm still in BG1, but I realize I'm going to have a big problem in BG2. That is, if you're a LG character, how can you deal with the Thieves' Guild vs. Bodhi situation. You have to side with one to advance the game, but I can't see a Paladin getting on board with either. I mean, yeah, technically you can ignore the whole alignment thing for the most part, but I tend to play my characters properly.

Now, I know you can say that the Thieves' Guild is the lesser of two evils, but they're still pretty evil by paladin standards. Your first quest from the Thieves' Guild is to steal an amulet. No paladin would stand for that. The same goes for Bodhi, as your first quest with her is robbery. Right there is a catch-22.

I want my PC to be a charismatic front-liner, which means the paladin is the obvious choice. However, this really isn't a game for a paly, is it?

SCARY_WIZARD

To save the damsel in distress!

Basillicum

I don't think there's any question here; you have to side with the Thieves' Guild, simply because your character has no choice. He's allowed to not like it, and he's allowed to feel guilty about it. Maybe for roleplaying purposes you can postpone the Paladin Stronghold stuff till after you've saved Imoen? That way you can say that your character attempts to atone for his collaboration with the thieves.

But bottom line is this: your character knows that Imoen has been unjustly imprisoned in Spellhold and has to accept one of two evils to get her out of there.

NOTE: In my paladin playthroughs I usually pretended they became Fallen Paladin by ToB. There's just too much happening to keep a paladin on a stable goody-two-shoes path.

velehal

There was (is?) a mod exactly for this situation. It (at least I think) offers the third way to get to Spellhold without using the help of Bodhi/Shadow thieves. The problem is that I´ve never tried it and I don´t know the name of the mod and if it is worthwhile/good. And Saerileth mod also offers an alternative way to Spellhold. But I wouldn´t recommend to use this mod. I think there is a topic in this forum about this mod where you can read how and why it is terrible.

mfr001

I wondered about this when I first played as well. Being a paladin is the best way I know of rebelling against daddy though so it is too good to miss. I think the balance though is to use the Thieves Guild. My reasoning is as follows.

1) Lawful good is not the same as lawful stupid. Doing nothing when there are difficult decisions to be made is not an option for a true paladin. Paladins recognise that evil is all around us but there are grades of evil. The greater the evil, the more urgent it is to put an end to it. Therefore it may be necessary to take steps which in other circumstances would be unthinkable when a great evil is afoot.

2) The Thieves Guild seems to be composed of human(oid)s whereas Bhodi is a vampire, a creature which is evil by its' very nature (at least in AD&D 2). The thieves may repent of their evildoing but Bodhi cannot, nor do I have a helmet of change alignment, so Bodhi represents the greater evil.

3) When all this is over I shall have to do penance, which may involve taking steps against the Thieves Guild for example.

I would like to thank Minsc for supplying the "mots juste" for this note.

(And I must learn how to spell note.)

Wilbur

As the saying goes the end justifies the means. While it may be against lawful good alignment I'm sure most people would still break the law to save someone close to them. I know I would but I guess I'm neutral good/true neutral anyway

Tetraploid

All the things the Thieves' Guild asks of you are acting against the vampires. I reckon a Paladin could cope with that. You mentioned stealing an amulet but if I remember correctly you can join the Thieves whether or not you do the Mae'Var quest line, so a Paladin would simply refuse to offer any aid beyond what was absolutely necessary to get Imoen back. It's true that the game offers no truely Lawful way of getting to Spellhold but the very act of going against the Cowled Wizards is unlawful in itself. The very most extreme of Lawful characters would shrug and say 'Well, Imoen broke the law. Ignorance is not an excuse.' It gives lots of nice roleplaying opportunities though. Perhaps your Lawful Paladin accepts the Cowled Wizards judgement, despite mourning the loss of his childhood friend, but it isn't until after doing the Planar Sphere quest that he realises how corrupt and evil they really are. Of course, no lawful power in Athkatla is going to help...so he has to turn to Thieves and gets to feel dreadful about it until they help him clear a nest of vampires, which is an obviously bigger evil. In a way, the fact the game forces you into what may be an unnatural choice for your character makes the roleplaying aspect better, not worse.

Basillicum

I'm going to go ahead and quote something I wrote in another thread not too long ago.

Sure, the paladin has to follow a code of conduct and have a certain respect for law and order while serving his deity, but that's it. He still has a personality with as much potential as any other character (which is demonstrated on a couple occasions by NPCs in BG2, actually) . Stereotypes like "Lawful Stupid" usually fit but are still filled with misconceptions.

"Lawful Stupid" dictates that a character is so lawful that he follows the reigning laws no matter what they are, which is stupid. It's too easy and shortsighted to say that a paladin is lawful stupid though, as his actual laws are the laws and rulings of his deity. Now, most paladinian deities focus on simple things, like Justice, Honour, Battle, Resilience or just the eradication of evil. Apart from that the paladin is still quite free to choose what to do with his life.

As paladins themselves are harbingers of the good of their deities, and are supposed to endeavour to be an inspiring example, this easily comes with some arrogance. While their code of conduct requires them to be respectful of the set laws where they at, I don't think it's unusual for a paladin to override a current law if he deigns them unfit for a certain situation.

A good example of this is Brage's quest in BG1, where you can choose to bring him with you or kill him. I think a paladin should be able to choose either, depending on his priorities regarding "good" and "law".

Alexisisinneed

If you have Kheldorn in the party. He will refuse to help Bodhi. He will leave the party if you do. But In the thieves guild he turns a blind eye to their common theivery, but if you go into certain places he will mention that he wants to revisit this place and teach them a very things about justice.

artificial_sunlight

The mod for paladins is pretty good as far i have heard. But I think if you play Undead hunter you have al the reason in the world to help the shadow thieves.

Drugar

http://www.gibberlings3.net/alternatives/

It offers you a way to go through this business without involving the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi's guild, provided you take them both out later in the game.
It's pretty good, recommended to anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with either option.

Mrpenfold666

side with theives or side with vampire? for a paladin it seems pretty obvious to me but your right it is difficult becuase a paladin CHARNAME would be balancing the laws of the cowled mages and against his own turmoil of having his childhood friend held only a few meters away but he cant get to

mfr001

My interpretation (probably not a common one) is that the "Lawful" element refers to a code of morality which the paladin has come to over the years of training and reflection she/he has undergone. This may well be in conflict with the laws of the land, so the paladin would be acting lawfully by going against such laws.

In an extreme case he would refuse to carry out an instruction even from his god if it contradicted his code.

Kamigoroshi

mfr001 said:

In an extreme case he would refuse to carry out an instruction even from his god if it contradicted his code.

You mean like being commanded to buy short cakes instead of the paladin's all-time favourite chocolate donuts? That I can understand. Hell, even I wouldn't carry out such detestable instructions from my deity Ghaunadaur!

Corvino

Lawful often means more a personal code of conduct and honour than obeying every law of the land. Now, conflicting ideas of honour often cause righteous folks to feel messed up.

Choosing between one's family and duty to a lawful authority is a common theme. Look at Ned Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire, who needs to decide whether to leave his family to serve his king, and even so we feel sure he conceals some things from King Robert. Contradictory duties can be forced on a Paladin, and yours may see the saving of his friend as very pressing.

Kneller

I've heard about the mod, but I heard it wasn't really that good. It just kinda got the job done, but that's it. In any event, I'd like to keep the game vanilla.

I think there's a pretty big difference between Lawful Stupid and just not wanting to help out either of two evil factions. I'm all for rescuing Imoen, and that definitely should take priority. But "the means justifies the ends" doesn't work for a Lawful Good character in my book. Many of you said that the Thieves' guild is the obvious choice for a good character, and I agree, but it's tough, if not impossible, to justify for a paladin. Regardless of the specifics of a paladin's code, I sincerely doubt that any code would say it's ok to aid and abet a criminal organization.

Of course, this is only one of probably many unsolvable moral dilemmas for paladins in this game.

Mrpenfold666

well when the other option is working for a vampire, in my opinion for a paladin its an obvious choice. but what you say is correct the paladin would hate it but he would think of the long term goal, and if you think about it. he is gaining the thieves guilds trust and knowledge of entrances into the guild so he could mop up later after saving Imoen, i like to think paladins are smart enough to think of long term goals and while he may work for the theives guild for now he can always go back and rectify it and give justice where needed after saving his friend

velehal

Or you can install Quest Pack (great mod, with exception of few components it doesn´t look like a mod at all), work for thieves and then in the sixth chapter kill them on the behalf of the city authorities.

atcDave

While I would agree there is no completely appealing path for a paladin, the thieves ARE the lesser evil, AND, the Cowled Mages are clearly corrupt and evil themselves.
In addition, you never have to do any evil for the thieves (previously mentioned amulet quest is not a part of the main quest line) only fight vampires. Which I'm happy to do.

Basillicum

Tetraploid said:

In a way, the fact the game forces you into what may be an unnatural choice for your character makes the roleplaying aspect better, not worse.

I love this. Absolutely agree.

"You can't always get what you wa-ant!"

Corvino

The tasks you are required to do to aid the Shadow thieves are pretty specific in being opposed to Bodhi's vampires. Meeting Mook is a "weapons shipment" to combat them, tracing the defectors is to find out where the vampires are hidden and so on. Aside from paying the Shadow thieves, you don't have to do anything not directly linked to bringing down the vampires.

the_spyder

While I am a big proponent of playing Paladins to the hilt, I never understood the mentality that as a Paladin you couldn't even talk to people of lesser virtue. Um, EVERYONE is of lesser virtue than a Paladin. They exist to show the common man a better (specifically as designated by their order and ther deity) way, but in order to do that they need to deal with everyone. I absolutely believe that a Paladin wouldn't deal with Bodhi on general principal. However, the Thieves guild are a recognized part of the world and of the city. So long as the Paladin doesn't have to get dirty with any obviously evil acts, dealing with the Thieves guild should be a no brainer and even encouraged as they get the chance to show these thieves the errors of their ways (without breaking heads to do so).

In short (in my view only), things might be pretty black and white to the Paladin. But any Paladin has to know that things are not always that black and white to the rest of the world. They are the example (the carrot, not necessarily the stick). Be that upstanding beacon of goodness, but to do that you don't need to be a prig about it and kill everyone that doesn't believe as you do.

Malicron

I've always thought, strange as it sounds, that "the unreachable star" from Man of La Mancha was the perfect example of the Paladin's code. That they should do the best the humanly can, even if they know they have no chance of succeeding, because they're an example. They exist as much to inspire the common people as they do to protect them.

KidCarnival

I really wish there was an option to double cross both sides and turn them over to the Counsil of the Six, who would then open a third way to get to Spellhold. The authority figure could be left neutral, so an evil character could do this just out of spite/greed (wanting both rivals gone to take over as new "mob boss") and lawful characters, including paladins, could roleplay it as having played along only to gather evidence from the start. Though that isn't a real option, it's how I would justify a paladin siding with the thieves - playing undercover cop.

Archaos

What is worse? Not dealing with the Shadow Thieves and let your friend/sister die? Or join them out of need to save her and stop Irenicus? I played as a Cavalier and did fine RP-wise.

Though my next run will be with a Blackguard so Bodhi, here I come. Heh.

Malicron

@KidCarnival
A good plan, except I believe Aran Linvail is on the Council of Six.

Eudaemonium

Malicron said:

KidCarnival
A good plan, except I believe Aran Linvail is on the Council of Six.

This just sounds like an opportunity for some intrigue and behind-the-scenes powerplaying.

the_spyder

Yeah, understand that the thieves guild is actually entrenched in the structure of the city. Completely removing it/burning it to the ground would (a) not make you a fan of the leaders and (b) probably only create a vacuum for something else potentially worse to take it's place.

It might be interesting if you could join the Sacred Heart and have them help you get to Spellhold. That might be a preferable alternative for a paladin. But again, I don't see any reason why Paladins need to hide away from the realities of life in a big city just to remain a Paladin.

Malicron

Eudaemonium said:

Malicron said:

KidCarnival
A good plan, except I believe Aran Linvail is on the Council of Six.

This just sounds like an opportunity for some intrigue and behind-the-scenes powerplaying.

Which doesn't sound very paladin-y to me. No matter what variation on the paladin you take, it's not a very subtle class.

Schneidend

Sometimes heroes need to face tough choices. A real Paladin would man up and do what's necessary.

Deefje

@kneller

Hm, I think a paladin should have no trouble picking either. I usually never play paladins (I don't like the feeling of having to depend on the benevolence of a deity for even part of my power).

But, lawful good doesn't necessarily mean that you can't break any rules. It means, you can't break 'your' rules. Lawful people are a just a bit more autistic than the others.

At most they are limited by their deity in their choices, but I doubt they'd really fret over the little things.

If you roleplay your paladin as a character that has the principle of not joining up with anyone or anything remotely evil (or in the case of thieves I personally think they can be chaotic of any alignment), then that's your choice. But it's not how every paladin would react to that situation.

Also if you want to go with the 2e handbook.

Siding with the Shadow Thieves as far as I recall only results in the category 'grave violations' if you don't do too many of their thieving side quests. Even if you consider them 'extreme violations' you can repent for them by forfeiting your stronghold(or perhaps just refuse it in this game for roleplay purposes) and you'll have offered sufficient penance. It's actually one of the sample penances in the handbook.

I hope this helps.