So as I've often stated, I'm in a Pathfinder RPG game. Not just any old PF (homebrew) no. We're in Second Darkness AP. The game where you have to hunt drow EVEN when they turn part of the Plane of Shadow into a temporal recreation of seeing a comet come burrowing down on you.
Oh and where apparently a LE Necromancer and a LG Paladin have to work together because the necromancer is an elf (or elf blooded in the sense of being a half elf.) Anyway, we did the whole "explore the City of Celvywina(sp), fight drow, and now, thanks to a magic portal, we're in its past with the end of the world clearly in sight.
My only major gripe still remains, WHY THE HELL doesn't my paladin kill the necromancer? I mean other than the fact he animated the dead Vrock Demon (Paladins don't mind that because let's be honest...it's a demon. Abyss loves to get its stuff back. Undeath doesn't do that.) So now I'm still stuck with him...but I honestly think I want to change characters for two reasons; 1) The necromancer will probably still be in the party at the end of this adventure...maybe. 2) The fact that I know we will have to take drow form (not just a disguise folks. We take drow corpses and BECOME drow.) doesn't sit well with a paladin, especially ones that worship Demon Princes/Lords.
So... top that off with the fact the world might end...(at least in this 10,000 year period) I just...feel like wondering how much longer my paladin can take it. (Myself, I just feel bad for my character because she just doesn't want undead hanging around. At least the ones the Necromancer (should clarify he's a sorcerer with the Undead Bloodline) keeps creating that aren't demons.
Also...should I just grin and bear it with the paladin?
The idea that Paladins have to hate necromancers is tied up in some kind of weird christian salem witch trial superstition nonsense.
Necromancers animate dead things with negative plane energy to perform tasks. These things don't suffer. They don't feel. They vanish when the necromancer is done with them. They are basically throw away robots.
Does negative plane energy stick around and cause evil in the world? No.
Do his minions walk off when he is done with them? No.
Does he have a special ability to control and combat naturally appearing undead and keep them from harming people? Yes.
Can he put evil to good work? Yes.
The people your paladin should be salty at, if anyone, are the wizards that rip celestial beings from their home plane and use them for combat here, against their will. That is messed up.
Summoning a demon and forcing it to fight for the cause of good, putting it through pain in the name of goodness? Fucking awesome.
Hey, Nightfall. I'm not familiar with the AP, but here's my advice, for what it's worth.
Take one for the team. Grin and bear it. If you put the necromancer to the sword, the rest of the party might take exception, even if they're Good-aligned (as in "he was a SOB, but he was
our SOB and also our arcane artillery battery, dumbass").
If you absolutely, positively need an in-character justification, go with something along the lines of "fight fire with fire", or better yet, "let the agents of Darkness turn against each other" or "evil bears the seed of its own demise" or somesuch. You don't have to be BFFs with the lich wannabe, but just because you're committed to an eternal war between Light and Darkness doesn't mean your character is deprived from the bare minimum common sense of recognizing the necessity of (on occasion, and being very,
very careful) using evil's weapons to fight evil. This sort of quandary is the stuff epics are made of!
To use a rather heavy-handed analogy, think of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Unless the Allied High Command was made up of apocalyptic psychos (and I'm quite sure it wasn't), no one in his right mind was happy to rain total destruction of that sort upon the enemy. Only after weighing the alternatives was this momentous decision taken.
Take a page from the Tao-te Ching (not my favorite translation, but here goes):
Quote from: LaotzeGood weapons are instruments of fear;
all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.
Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.
On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.
Let me start out by saying firstly, Crane, I'm not against people using spells or necromancy. I also loved Hollowfaust, and the idea that non-sentient/non-intelligent undead are 'neutral'. However as it relates to Pathfinder RPG, that is not the case. Unintelligent undead are STILL evil. So while I might be against an evil wizard summoning and/or binding celestials to do his bidding, it's more...unnatural to my paladin that the sorcerer/necromancer keeps USING the dead bodies of people we meet to 'increase' his power.
Secondly, you REALLY don't know demons if you think they're "trainable" Believe me, you're better off with devils. :P
Butcher, if you want a concise outline of the AP, I can point you in that direction...At least I thought I could. :P But turns out you're just going to have to read it for yourself....
That or I give you a fairly brief overview: In the Campaign Setting of Golorian, there is a place called the Inner Sea. It was formed by the falling star that was brought down by Aboleths. (using their rune magics) In the process it altered the world of Golorian significantly. One such significant event is the fact MANY races from that time went underground. DEEP underground. That is where the drow come in. These formerly goodly elves "evolved" into top ranked predators and demon worshipers. Their cousins, regular elves, had fled the world of Golorian via "elf gates" to a secluded location. When the elves returned to claim their lands, they also encountered the drow. Thus a silent cold war has raged between the two races. In the process one of the leaders of the elves, decided to research a way to re-create what is called "The Starfall." This led her to turn into a drow. (Note by turn into I mean she PHYSICALLY became a drow.) She then decided to enact her plan BUT this time against the elven homeland. The PCs come in after they see a "test fire" of the magics which bring down a small piece of meteor. Right now in this part, the PCS (myself and the rest) are trying to help the elves reclaim one of their fallen cities. In the process we have entered into a Demi-plane which is more or less a recreation of the city from the time JUST before the Starstone fell. After we deal with the drow here, we then go down to one of THE major drow cities, disguised via corpses covering us, (instead of just illusions and/or transmutations) to help seal the deal and find out more about the drow's plan.
I hope that helped some.
I'm not against using some less...savvy means to ensure victory. But as a paladin AND a follower of Saranae(sp) we tend to view it as "You can be redeemed...but if you're pretty well far gone, time to die." At least that's how I've always read her. I'm feeling that I'm not alone in this since the Necromancer FLAT OUT told everyone IN CHARACTER, that if anyone in the party dies, he's making them zombies. You are however, right Butcher, that biting the hand that feeds isn't something the paladin would do lightly... I just don't think Hasini (my paladin) will be around for the aftermath of the city fight.
I just am not sure how much more I can do....especially since we DO have a summoner and the occasional gnome conjurer (irregular player) to do our arcane stuff. (Plus I should point out that while I am the meat shield, I don't actually HAVE spells. I took an alternate feature for Paladin that doesn't give me spells BUT does help out in some situations.)
I ran a Vampire campaign where the party was made up of 2 Holy Knights , A templar and a hospitaler and 2 Camarilla Vampires, a nosferatu and a gangrel.
They were working to prevent the Sabbat releasing a virus int the world that would turn all humans to mindless cattle. The Paladins (for that is what they really were) had obvious reasons to stop that and the Camarilla don't want mindless Humans not their style at all.
It was a very similar situation where the good guys had to suck it up to work witht eh bad guys and hte bad guys had to rein it in. There were moments where the two groups nearly came to blows but they pushed forward and the tension in the group was a great RP tool.
Eventually the alliance failed but oddly that was because one of the knights volunteered to be embraced in exchange for key information. The new vamp was totally out of control, good roleplaying but also because from a game perspective the knight lost all of their faith powers and found their vamp powers were relatively weak and wanted to amase more power to get themselves back to where they were and saw diablarie of other PCs as a fine solution).
Anyway it makes sense for a paladin to work with an evil to combat a greater evil, but at the same time they should look to limit that evils excesses. It's a common trope just look at Buffy and Spike, Jason and Medea, or Superman teaming up with Lex Luthor to Save the Earth.
Jibba,
While in theory that works, in practice it tends to amount more to the paladin grimacing while the necromancer keeps animating dead things. :P That plus the fact I'm pretty damn sure the necromancer doesn't want to change any time soon.