A Paladin of Iomedae Code question

[Leah Sangster]

Hey, I'm kinda new at being the Game Master (or DM if you prefer). And I have a question regarding the actions of one of my players who is playing a Paladin of Iomedae.

If a Paladin of Iomedae takes prisoners that surrender during a fight and promise to let them live, and then a party member who is not a Paladin says they should just kill them and the paladin leaves the room, should that paladin lose their paladin hood? Does it matter what the alignment of the prisoners is? I'm not sure if I should have them lose their Paladin hood or not. My friends who are more experiences as GMs tell me I should, but I'm not sure. I know the player will be upset, but they should have thought about it before just letting prisoners be killed. Please let me know what you think. 

Thanks in advance,

New GM, Leah

[Bodhisattva]

Leah,

If your paladin knowingly leaves the room so that they can kill the prisoner, that might very well jeopardize the paladin's standing with Iomedae. The alignment of the prisoners doesn't matter in this case. The paladin must hold to his/her faith; they don't get brownie points for finding loopholes, and that's part of playing the role of the paladin.

As the saying goes, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."

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"Born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad..."
                                          - Rafael Sabatini, 1921, Scaramouche

[Leah (AKA Trouble)]

Thanks for the help. I was thinking it should happen, just making sure I was right. :)

[Lazlo Arcadia]

I completely agree with Peter here. The Paladin is about Honor and Nobility of spirit, and arguably one of the hardest classes to play because they really are about at least TRYING to do the right thing in every circumstance.  On the other hand, there is truly nothing which obligates the Paladin from giving such a promise not to kill a Chaotic Evil Death Knight, or a captured Demon, for example.  They would reason (rightly so) that if such a captive were to live, or worse escape, they would pose too great of a risk.  Such a foe is almost certainly going to find where the PC's live, who their friends and family are, what church they are associated with, etc and kill EVERYONE!

Paladins are about Honor, not tactical stupidity.  Back in the day the Lawful Good alignment (as originally written) was such an impossible straightjacket of conflicting "thou shalt nots" that it was more frequently referred to as "Lawful Stupid".  This is no longer the case.  I strongly suggest doing some reading on the Lawful Good alignment here and looking carefully at the descriptions of the Paladin on multiple different online sites.  Once you are done there, look carefully at the description of the Deity that the Paladin follows.  Yes this is alot of reading, but not only will it make you a MUCH better DM, it will also help you to have a greater understanding of the alignment system in general.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Happy Gaming bro (and sorry for the very late response on this).

Lazlo