Paladins with only 10 magic objects?

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Does anyone else out there play BG2 as paladins using the P&P rules i.e. not only roleplaying good but not owning more than ten magical items? The restriction stipulates no more than 4 weapons, 1 suit of armour, 1 shield, and four other magical objects - bolts and arrows don't count. If you solo at all, as I am, it is really tricky because not *owning* more than 10 means you can't stash magical objects and only *carry* 10 or less since that's the same as having your cake and eating it. You can't hoard wealth as a paladin so you must sell off magic items and donate the money to the church! Potions (in particular, of healing) are a big problem because obviously you need healing capability and if you're soloing you're *really* going to need healing capability. You can't get a thief to steal a Ring of Regeneration from somewhere!
Anyway, I play this way and it's a fun challenge.

 

Have never and will never play P&P so i don't know what your talking about really. But it would be a challenge. You really like making topics, don't you?

 

You find a ring of regeneration later on in the game. That is of course if you only have 9 magical items.

 

Sounds like a pretty strange rule - carrying more than 10 healing potions is considered a no-no!

Personally I go with what's more realistic: take whatever you want with you and to hell with dumb rules like that. After all, if you were playing this game for real (as in really being there) you wouldn't turn down an 11th healing potion because it was against the rules.

 

It's a rule that was put in to balance a very powerful class.

It doesn't make any sense, and it's just lain silly. Now, if the game implemented a rule that a party with a Paladin in it automatically made 10% less gold on selling items, and 10% less gold were found (to represent the Paladin's hefty tithe), I would have much less of a problem with that.

 

When it comes to potions, it's about different kinds number, not about bottle number. Plus, bows and arrows, crossbows and bolts, slings and bullets etc count as one. Also, full plate armour is considered to include helmet, while let's say chain doesn't. Then, it goes like: one armour suit, one shield, four weapons, four misc objects.

The rule does seem to be a balance one, but official doctrine says it's much like the poverty rule.

Orthodox approach results in leaving magical objects on the ground for the first evil creature to find them as the paladin couldn't even take them and carry them to a church. Uberorthodox approach extended that rule to include dealings with money.

We can dismiss the last one on the grounds of paladin virtues - powerful artifacts had better be secured, or law - he can, like, claim part of the stuff in the name of the deity/church/king/lord/house/whatever.

The 10 items rule per se is more troublesome. Without changing the letter of it, people get around it with property transfers if their paladins serve some power or royal/dominial treasury if their paladin become lords.

Still, let's take an example: sir Big'un is a paladin. Rules say: one armour suit. Lady Charm'em, his mother, dies and leaves the Robe of Uber Archmagi to his only child. Should we make him give it away? But well, someone could make an exception because he's never going to be able to use that item. But, let's say, he is a swordsman, has four swords for various occasions, and the maul of his father, sir Whack'em, falls to him. Will he start counting his magical swords, figure out four is too much by exactly one and decide which to throw away? Then, he could also inherit Bombastic Chieftain's Chainmail +2 from his grandfather, chief Dances with Werewolves or Undersized Rusty Chainmail of Slow Martyrdom from his brother sir Kickmehard of Ilmater (paladins of Ilmater can wear up to chain) while he wears Fullplate +5 of shining. Damn, paladins are not shopkeepers.

One DM I know, focuses on Lawful Good use of property, for example. I would also add some anti-craving attitude, giving paladin players a sufficient lesson if they fail to grasp certain ideas. After all, do we really the paladin to, for example, sell one Mithril Fullplate +5 of Horrendous Price right from his back, donating the money to LG wizard academy led by his NPC wife, and come back to dragon lair in cheap chain for another? Eh...

 

It certainly isn't a plain dumb rule. It *is* a matter of game balance but it's also a matter of the paladin's sworn pledge to honour, justice and service of goodness. Chevalier, I would argue that *absolutely* your paladin would sell the robe of the magi, regardless of whom it came from. Sentimentality is no justification for holding on to an item that cannot be put to good use. If his mother respected and loved him, she would trust him to, indeed *expect* him to, do good with it, by whatever means he felt would be best - or else she would have bequeathed it to charity et al.
As for his weapons, again, I feel a paladin *would* 'count his weapons' and get rid of the surplus. To imagine otherwise would be to think in the terms common amongst man i.e. selfish, greedy hoarding of wealth. To the paladin, this is meaningless per se, but not meaningless relative to the people who are starving and homeless. In these terms I think one can argue a paladin would see hoarding wealth (in any form) at best narrow-minded and at worst, positively obscene.

Another justification for the rule is the paladin's mindset on his role. He *has* to see himself as a servant of a higher cause, since he has powers, even at 1st level, that come not from himself, but from a divine source e.g. his protection from evil aura. The spells he gets at 9th level and beyond are powers bestowed upon him from the Gods, through the daily prayers he makes. Link this with the rule that demands that paladins will not, except under the most dire emergency, act in stealth (he must be *seen* for what he does and what he stands for because it is right and true etc. if he is to be a shining example to others), it stands to reason that the paladin would put his faith in what his lord has bestowed upon him and not in mere trinkets. See? Sure, as the proverb says: 'trust in Allah, but tie up your camel,' the paladin won't be *unwise* on the matter, which is why they are allowed to have a selection of such objects. Indeed, paladins will be extremely careful to select well in the eyes of the lord. Part of the finding of magical items can be seen as *heaven sent* e.g. the Holy Avenger, the paladin braces, etc. but he won't stockpile items 'in case' and he won't burden himself with them either.

Also, according to the P&P rules on paladins and strongholds, they are only allowed to set aside enough money to build a *small* castle. He must pay his hirelings a 'reasonable rate' and support himself 'modestly'. If a paladin has wealthy family members, so be it - that is their own affair - but the paladin himself will give all his excess wealth away to good causes.

I think these rules are intended to make the player think, so that through role-playing, he might come to understand the amazingly philanthropic, selfless mindset of the paladin - this unswerving dedication to being a beacon of goodness to guide the way for others (hence the requirement for an exceedingly high charisma - he is a leader among men).

Incidentally, I've decided to change my own implementation of this stricture regarding potions. I now play that I *can* store potions (on the grounds that they are of transient effect and thus of less intrinsic value). However, I still don't allow myself to carry more than 10 magic items on my person. It seems okay to me to *return to base* and drink several healing potions (after all, I have survived the adventure!) and of course, I still give away my coin.

Edit: Chevalier, any paladin would believe that winning a battle is not going to come down to whether he is wearing Fullplate +5 or fighting naked. He would believe it was a matter of wisdom in choosing the time for combat, and the power of his faith in himself, his cause, and his lord. If he felt it right to do so, he would face a dragon naked, for he would know that no man-made armour could be better than the might of his God, and the power of righteousness to prevail over evil. Ever lost a fight *despite* having the best magical weapons and armour? Of course! Ever won a fight because of great timing and strategy, and even what one might call pure 'luck' but another might call 'devine intervention'? I bet you have. You can have platemail +6 and a vorpal sword of multiple wishes +10 etc. but if you keep rolling 1's, you're a dead duck. I'm not saying a paladin would fight dragons unarmoured but I do believe they would put far less faith in such an item as plate armour +5, when he or she can sell the armour and rehouse an entire village that was razed to the ground by marauding gnolls, and then enter monster lairs *fully* armed and prepared with the power of faith i.e. armour of faith, sanctuary, et al., courage and guile.

[ January 23, 2004, 22:14: Message edited by: keldor ]

 

How many words was that keldor?
The rule isn't IMHO quite ballanced either, you would be able to have a billion rouge stones and have more assets than Bill Gates but not be able to have 10 +1 Short Swords?
About the 'leaving magical weapons for evil beings' You could bless the weapon and douse it in holy water or what ever to make it unusable to evil charactors, Or you could get someone to prance in with rosy cheeks and blue shoes to prance in and .....never mind (note to self: stop reading lotr)

 

Er, no Stu, you sell your gems and give the money to charity i.e. the church.

 

Keldor... Keeping something for sentimental reason is very well a damn good excuse... If someone says you're a paladin and you need to give me your mothers robe because it's one item over... I'd that second say it's not mine, it's the property of my family...

All of a sudden anything extra you carry becomes family property and not your own... A justification like all the others you used to get around other such actions. If you roleplay, you gotta be consistant, not a meta-gamer

 

Huh? Who is your post aimed at Omigodly? I didn't advocate keeping items for 'sentimental reasons.

I can't follow your post. You seem to be saying that you think keeping items for sentimental reasons would be wrong (since it can be used as a 'workaround' the paladin's restrictions), yet you say that it's a damn good reason for the paladin to keep an item! Please explain.

FYI, I wouldn't apply this paladin rule if I was a meta-gamer. Why would impose a restriction on myself and then 'workaround' it?

 

Disagreed. Paladins value honour, nobility and family highly. Your example doesn't work. He could as well sell everything and go kill dragoins in loincloth and with bare hands. The rest is metagaming.

BTW, it doesn't even have to be archmage robe. It can be a damned singing postcard or some other Returning Hairbrush +5 or Self-Cleaning Cat Litterbox.

And metagame. For some obscure mystical reason, all paladins would know that 4 is perfectly all right, but five is really, really greedy. And all would count the value of whole loot they get, or better hire merchants to do that, not to miss a single penny for that would be an ethos violation. Payable immediately. Why not tithe from armour before killing its wearer?

And I was speaking of a paladin sort of collecting swords. An average paladin would probably have a holy avenger and maybe some enchanted blunt weapon or just the holy avenger.

Four is poverty, five is wealth? One word: meta. Like metagaming. It's the spirit of modesty and humility that's important here. Not numbers.

Paladins will slaughter a whole damn Orc army two hours before dusk if need be. And, unless they're dumb, they will scout on the battleground and on the enemy before any battle. For practical reasons, they will often have to pretend to have more soldiers than they really have, or dress up peasants, and to fake maneuvres. Johnny Conscript must return home in one piece.

That rule appears to have been implemented in order to prevent paladins from hoarding piles of gold, using castle funds as an excuse. A paladin will most likely conquer some castle or be given one from a liege lord, or marry some alleged virgin he's saved from drago(o)ns He is not supposed to refuse to do his duty.

He might well be elected to lordship or even kingship, even if he isn't really supposed to found an empire or a dominion. I would surelydispense with the latter two for sufficient reasons.

And then comes the 10 item problem. To avoid a mental breakdown, we must conclude that personal property is not the same as national treasury, property associated with the office held or whatever such. Not like a king couldn't go by just one armour suit, four weapons, four misc items - the rest being unenchanted. Perhaps masterwork, nothing more. Sure, why not. But if you read deeper into PHB, you'll notice the three months contingency money restriction. How is a kingdom going to survive if its treasury holds as much as three months expense worth? Of course, the king could have no personal property at all because of simply not caring. He most probably would, anyway.

 

I stick by my original statement. The "10 item" rule was made to balance a powerful class.

 

Keldor... Keeping something for sentimental reason is very well a damn good excuse...


That was my first line Keldor, didn't think it was that confusing... but to clarify, I mean, the 10 items rule is a rule to balance the class, but it is easily bypassed, like most other rules in d&d, because of other rules that also exist!

Hope that cleared it up!

Oh and the last section in my post was just to say, for anyone role playing a paladin P&P style, you have to be consistant, if you're going to do it, you have to be Lawful Good, and you have to play with that log shoved up your butt!! Like the Illithium thing, you shouldn't have gone and done anything other than have waited to gather the Illithium if you had trouble the first time, because you promised him Illithium. In this case, the 10-items rule, if you're going to use it, don't find a way around it, you will only keep 10 items, and you won't buy an excess of those items for whatever reason, as per the rules dictated in the handbook you saw them in, (I've actually read the PHB and found it was not in there).

[ February 08, 2004, 03:08: Message edited by: omnigodly ]

 

It is a good rule.

But it is a subject to interpretation.

1. It is possible that a paladin find/get an item and he doesn't know that it has magical properties.

2. To own is not everytime to carry. The best example: paladin is going to beat a horde of monsters. Hw finds MANY magical items. He should be able to protect them against missuse (by evil or unlawful - not only characters, but also deeds) => he can stay where he is and protect them as long as he dies, or somebody comes to whom he can trust to take these items; OR he can take them to another place where he can deliver them to somebody; OR he cen destroy them. It is possible to find MANY solutions in a P&P game where DM should be flexible. But in a cRPG game only carrying these artifacts is a solution (or is there a flexible cRPG out there ?).

3. As I "proved" above, this is a P&P rule, that is not transferable into todays cRPG games. E.g. I would say it's OK for a paly to carry MORE than 10 magical items - but when he takes some more than 10, he should decide which is to be owned by him and which is to be delivered to some place where it is safe.

4. On guiding items. If a paly is guiding an artifact for some reason, he doesn't own it. And when a something EVIL is on his doorway, he could decide: to use this artifacts to dispose this EVIL or to fight this EVIL without support of this artifact. Which would be worse ? To leave the artifact to fall into hand of EVIL or to use it ? This can be a subjective of gods will (or DMs). But no todays computer game can say.

5. To server law and good is a way of many questions and decisions. Some may be false. BUT it does not mean that somebody who makes a decision from desire to do good, that proves to be false has fallen from law or good.


I would say: make your personal law in all places of your existence: real life, P&P, cRPG. Not only on carrying more than 10 magical things.
In P&P it should be discussed with DM and he should say: it is OK for me (if you hold to it, you will not fall as paladin), or this part of this law is not OK - then change it so that DM is satisfied -- and of course hold with it.
In cRPG is it up to you to hold with such a rule. It's MORE roleplaying and training of objectivity as one could think. And objectivity should be palys thing. This law should not interfere with the game designers point of view of palys - otherway you will end as a fallen paladin.
What about real life? I don't know - It is a big problem to buy a house or a flat in our country. I need one to survive. To meet one would mean to pay horrible amount of money to people I see as evil ones - that strip all money from other people. This means I am in need of stashing money to 'build a little castle'. I am angry about that. But I think I can make many lawful and good deeds in the future. And as a computer programer I own MANY 'magical' items. Only to use them to do good. Without them I would be lost.

"What say you ?"

 

I assume you mean Paper & Pencil Ad&d game, the real stuff. Well, I assume you could follow the rules by the book, but soloing with a paladin...That's quite a challenge...I wouldn't restrict him that way.

 

Isn't there a way to "evolve" your paladin somehow, i bet it differs when you are Paladin or Inquisitor, or another paladin kit, but i think you should not look at the rules.
Just determain what is best for you...
There a so many artifacts, it shouldn't be a problem to find out what suits best for you...

 

What about: what is best to the world, not to me ? I am a PALADIN (sorry, Tal & other admins for all upcase). I serve to all people ho deserve it. I try to help those to whome I can help to get to the right side. I eradicate, with tears in my eyes, those who cannot be stopped to do evil things. If I can I try to turn them to good and law or to stop doing bad things. But sometimes dead is only way. Then I ask those whome I killed, my gods and my conscience for forgivenes - It was the only way.

Sometimes it's hard decision. But not for me. For all goodnes in all beings in this universe.

This is the highest principle. All should bow to this. My possesions too - to have none or 20 magic items.