Handing off a job that seems "dishonorable" or "dirty" to someone else sounds incredibly un-paladinish.
as opposed to *doing* a job that 'seems' "dishonorable" or "dirty"?
RB: It doesn't take godly knowledge or wisdom to know that a silent, covert attack is less dangerous to any innocents involved than a full-out frontal assault.
You have two choices: go in and assassinate a leader of an evil cult, in which case the cult will fall apart, or perpetrate a frontal assault, in which case the cult will murder every single person in the enclave, including hostages and children.
i'm referring to the knowledge that the cult will fall apart (and be unable to murder hostages) the instant the leader is defeated. and how did the paladin find out what and who was inside the enclave, anyway? by answering that, i would presume that there are/were more appropriate people for the job. and if the paladin's superiors don't care enough to send them instead of giving the paladin all the glory/responsibility, then they deserve to have any resultant deaths on their conscience just as much as would a paladin who religiously believes that deception is wrong. (cuz, like - they do, and it is religious.)
a special agent of covert military or 'law enforcement' who does what you advise is not an example of successful paladinhood (unless a neutral or chaotic superior is training very very sheltered paladins that espionage is righteously LG behavior and then sending these tools against very specific targets without publicity). (hmm - sounds like something that can be abused) the crossing into, or creation of, 'grey areas' like "it's righteous to be dishonest *sometimes*, and you as an individual get to decide when" is fine for ruthless good people in my campaign any day. but >paladins< who are habitually so ruthless Fall. as i see it, as was suggested and codified on more than one occasion throughout all editions, et cetera.
and why is it that they always receive military training and never receive espionage training, if 'anything goes' in the cause of righteousness? the person for your job, imo, would be more like a NG or CG cleric/rogue. who are probably a larger slice of the population in most paladin-containing worlds (especially 3e
). paladins have serious benefits because they have serious behavioral restrictions *beyond being lawful good*.
anyway, i'm veering towards scenarios in which there's actually more than one protagonist, or the paladin has more than two choices. forgive me.
speaking of which, you seem to be overlooking the atonement issue anyway. i don't think it's a terrible mess or a 'serious flaw in D&D' if the paladin (let's assume they're the only survivor of a party that was sent against the enclave)
1) sneaks in, knocks out/restrains/takesouttolunch the single figure that motivates all other evil entities inside, therefore preventing them from being able to do anything evil (unless of course they escape (with hostages, even), but i suppose the leader's life was also the only thing that gave them mobility)
2) atones for employing underhanded methods, requiring heavier tithing, lots of grueling community service and probably another quest which would've been something any self-respecting paladin would jump at the chance to do anyway, right?
because a LG organization that is more strict than other LG organizations (hence additional powers, game balance blahblahblah) oughtn't just say "yup, you did the right thing, don't worry about your illegal methods, we signed an international treaty that allows for assassination when you are reduced to one other choice".
HOWEVER - isn't murder kind of invariably evil, even in real life? i just don't buy the whole "you know the only way to save any lives is to quietly kill a single entity". most extreme faiths that mirror/parallel a paladin's (that i've heard of, anyway) consider that a Temptation rather than a Solution.
regardless, most players probably won't want to die gloriously AND automatically cause the death of X innocents.