what if you're withouth any clerics or money, but with an INT of 2?
The fight where you gained the Cursed Sword also provides you with enough cash/loot to have the sword removed. And any Paladin who insists on controlling the party despite his 2 INT
deserves to Fall.
How do you know it [Saladrex] is evil? With Oversight, I think he's coded as chaotic neutral. Without, he's coded as evil. Buuut, he's not doing any harm, really, so the question becomes "is it okay to murder someone who's evil but not doing anything?"
I've never asked that the Virtue hit for killing Saladrex be removed outright, only for the addition of conversation options. Perhaps an 'arrogant' thread, where the speaker goads Saladrex into attacking first, and a 'bite your lip' thread, where the odds of Saladrex deciding whether to (teach this puny humanoid a lesson / be polite to someone you don't know) depend on the speaker's CHA / Reputation?
Also, there's the point that the person talking to Saladrex might not be the party leader. A PC Paladin shouldn't Fall simply because Anomen got too big for his britches and started casting spells without consulting the rest of the party.
If "a character doing what he does best" is a reason for killing things, then what about all the clearly non-evil undead in the game? Should an Undead Hunter immediately attack the chaotic good (?) lich in the Graveyard? Or indeed try to kill the spectre looking for its bear?
The "character doing what he does best" is only the icing on the cake, the most ironic point of the Cavalier vs. Saladrex issue. An Undead Hunter should not immediately kill the Lich or Wellyn because they are not obviously Evil, a distinction which is not the case with Saladrex.
As for the Lich, I take it you are speaking of Nevazaiah? For that matter, I say Paladins (but probably only Paladins or other LG PCs) should take a Virtue hit for every Evil NPC they keep in the party for more than a week. the character can't exactly look at their Record screen to see their Alignment, but after a week you're pretty much guaranteed to have seen enough of their banters to remove all doubt--especially in Korgan's case. So you want to "redeem" Viconia? Okay, so that's a Virtue drop of 1 point per week, there's enough Virtue floating around in the game to keep you at 17 or above....provided you don't dawdle when you're trying to rescue Imoen and save Suldenessellar.
Why? Stealing a trinket from an evil organisation is nowhere near cold-blooded murder.
But robbing a church
is blasphemy, and Paladins of all people (well, except Clerics of course) should know to respect that. Neither the Statuette nor the Necklace is on an
altar, exactly, but any Paladin should still know better. (Hey, kids, watch me practically contradict myself with my very next point!)
I'm sure there are plenty of other situations ingame where party members don't have specific dialogue to express their disapproval of evil actions.
If you're sure, let's hear some of them. Situations that are as quest-specific as stealing the Storm Necklace or killing Gethras.
Heck, Keldorn doesn't object to raiding the Temple of Talos, when even
Jan has his misgivings about it.
(What I'm saying here is that Keldorn
should give you some warning that you're playing with fire here, in the form of Torm's displeasure.)
So the essence of what you're proposing is more leeway for Paladins. Say, a Virtue drop of two before they fall? I'm certainly more willing to discuss that.
Yep! I'd favor a system where non-Fallen Paladins started with a Virtue of 15 (other Lawful Goods start at 12), due to the assumption that they must have been pretty honorable during BG1. From then on, any
loss of Virtue that puts them below 17 means they will Fall, so the young Paladin has to perform three more virtuous deeds before he's allowed any slippage at all.
Can the script be further modified, to allow forgiveness for killing party members who are Charmed or Confused?
Yeh, I can do that too. Obviously it can be exploited, but avoiding people cheating the system is very, very low on my list of things to do.
I'm curious about possible exploits--I thought you couldn't Charm or Confuse your own party members? You'd have to let someone else Charm them, then Confuse them and Charm them back.
I doubt the items whisper "I'm cursed, and I do X, Y and Z" in the character's ear.
True, that is rather unrealistic....in the case of the Sword. You
are unable to put it down, but you won't know what happens when you see an enemy
until you see that enemy. But consider Cursed items like the Bracers of Binding--as soon as you put them on, the penalties to DEX, THAC0, and maybe even spellcasting should be immediately obvious. The Ring of Folly is even more blatant. No, unless there's some enemy that has a Special Ability of making your party members go Berserk in a room full of innocents, I'd say that STATE_BERSERK still means that you're responsible for your actions.
As for scenario #3: Paladin's aren't supposed to commit evil acts just because one can rationalize that it will bring about the greater good. Any other character can freely behave that way, but paladins cannot, or else they fall (and rightly so).
And I'd agree with you in regards to Scenario 3, except that I don't regard it as an evil act. True, you go there at Edwin's behest and you very likely intend to kill the man, but Rayic himself is Evil (a Paladin has enough time to pop a Detect Evil to prove this, before Gethras turns hostile), a member of an Evil organization that deserves to be eradicated, and he creates/employs Imps and Mephits, which almost exclusively serve only Evil Wizards. Killing him would be even less of an evil act if you told him you would spare his life if he would reveal the location of Spellhold--a conversation option which would be welcomed (and used) by many roleplayers.
It's my opinion that a paladin shouldn't be working for Renal away, nor should they work for Mae'var or Edwin with the intention of betraying them later.
And certain types of Paladins would not, they would refuse to dirty their hands in such a manner, and I say more power to them. But not
all Paladins are that way, some would willingly lower themselves a bit (and take the Virtue penalty for it) in order to get the job done in whatever way seems most expedient. And to force
all gamers to play the Type A Paladin seems....tacky.
Regarding
atonement.....
As I've said before, I like Paladins being allowed to remain "safe" while in the 20-18 or 20-17 range. In cases where the player needs to raise his Virtue, but doesn't know of any actions that will raise it (or went way 'above' 20 in the early game, and has now exhausted all the quests), he might be allowed to donate money to Good-aligned Temples
anonymously, so that Virtue goes up instead of Reputation.
I think a time limit for atoning for your actions would be a bit labor-intensive to implement--I'd instead favor a penalty for as long as the Paladin was "at the brink." Lack of spellcasting abilities is good except that it wouldn't work for the Inquisitor--a +2 penalty to Saving Throws seems to fit the bill, as it nicely counteracts the -2 bonus that comes as a free advantage of the Paladin class.