A friend of mine rolled a new paladin and started training hiding in combat... poaching, ambushing and that sort of thing. There was someone else in the room to help with any periods of slow spawn. Now their soul is BLACK and no amount of tithing or pilgrim's badge kissing or whatever will fix it. They've been locked out of the guild because of their soul. Is there anything that can be done to get back in the guild's good graces? It's been over 12 hours now and no improvement and they're about to reroll into a necromancer. Thoughts? Solutions? Thanks.

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"I only automatically kill players when they're asking for it or it's funny. Or both." ~GM Raesh

Sorry for the double post: I think hiding only triggers the soul hit when you attack from hiding, right?

So he could hide, wait for the RT to end, unhide, to train hiding (note you have to wait for the rt to end to get the most experience, unhiding before that timer expires gives you a fraction of the exp reward).

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

>>A friend of mine rolled a new paladin and started training hiding in combat... poaching, ambushing and that sort of thing. There was someone else in the room to help with any periods of slow spawn. Now their soul is BLACK and no amount of tithing or pilgrim's badge kissing or whatever will fix it. They've been locked out of the guild because of their soul. Is there anything that can be done to get back in the guild's good graces? It's been over 12 hours now and no improvement and they're about to reroll into a necromancer. Thoughts? Solutions? Thanks.

So, good news, its fixable. Bad news - he'll be at it a while.

The short of this is, hiding is not really the way to go for Paladins. Is it trainable? Yes, you can >hide in PvE as much as you like. However, Advancing/retreating in stealth, poaching, ambushing, or pvp hiding/priors all smack the soul right in its happy place. This is why many many paladins don't even bother to train it at all.

On the subject of soul fixes - Tithe, Tend, Badge, Pray Chadatru in a holy weapon recharge spot and murder many much undead. Thats his best bet. Or if small enough reroll, but if he's going to play a paladin he should get used to glorious self punishment now and just fix it the fun way.

Good luck,

Samsaren

LOL Raesh. I thought the same thing... Hmmm... soul is black, might as well join the guild full of black souls. Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll pass them along.

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"I only automatically kill players when they're asking for it or it's funny. Or both." ~GM Raesh

>>but if he's going to play a paladin he should get used to glorious self punishment now and just fix it the fun way.<<

Samsaren, does this mean getting killed to reset the soul thing? Will dying and getting rezzed reset it? Or do they need to use up a favor? Or is this even possible? Thanks again.

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"I only automatically kill players when they're asking for it or it's funny. Or both." ~GM Raesh

Nope, just means he's gonna be working at it for a few days. If he's really new, just go hunt zombie goblins and various wee undead for training and it'll slowly fix itself. Between drift (soul drifts towards neutral) and the random boost for murdering undead face it WILL fix itself. Death doesn't effect soulstate at all.

Samsaren

If he's below 5th circle, just reroll anyway. It'll take you a few hours to get back the ranks, vs. a few days to fix the soul issue. It's kinda dumb and counter intuitive, but anything under 10th circle or so, it's often vastly faster to just reroll and make a quick run back to wherever you were.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

The stealth soul hit has always been kind of silly IMO.

I have always wanted to train stealth and did for a while but the setbacks of the soul hit make it not desirable.

Could always get it taught though.

Thanks for all the replies. He was a baby paladin and just simply rerolled. I think he'll be staying away from stealths at this point... heh.

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"I only automatically kill players when they're asking for it or it's funny. Or both." ~GM Raesh

<Whats the point of stealth if you just hide and unhide?

My favorite uses of stealth are not combat related. First and foremost, hiding from other players. The other non-combat uses of stealth (like shoplifting) don't really apply to paladins currently. I feel like stealth could use some expanding in directions beyond sneak attacks.

My point is what I stated. It seems redundant to limit a Paladin to only hiding/unhiding when there is no other guild that has such limitations.

Also to add it doesn't just taint the soul it also limits circling to boot.

<honor

Yeah ... reflection on honor is important. The conclusion I came to is that honor is something that is given to a person by others. If it has anything to do with morality or a code of conduct, it is only tangential. Save the village? Most likely the villagers will honor you however makes sense to them. The idea that attacking from hiding is somehow intrinsically dishonorable has always seemed a little weird to me. The only things that are dishonorable are things that earn you the ire of people.

Someone bakes me cookies? They have honored me. Someone spits in my burger? They have dishonored me. Likewise, by doing those things to people myself, I can honor/dishonor them.

Long story short - WE WANT STEALTH (as an option!) :D

And also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnUEDaeoF0Q

>Never really tried to train stealth seriously... but can't you just train it and take care of your soul? Do you HAVE to do the things that cause the soul hits?

You can, but it's going to be tricky. Since you get a hit for engaging or disengaging while hidden, and for attacking while hidden, you'd literally have to make sure you're at melee, then hide and unhide. That's about it, and that's a bit beyond most scripts.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

I think the point was more that each guild has restrictions they function under. The Paladinic code is more restrictive than most, but it's also one of the oldest and least updated.

Armifer has said he's thinking of ways to change it.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

<<The Paladinic code is more restrictive than most, but it's also one of the oldest and least updated.

Agreed, which is why I am not advocating the status quo.

There are parts of the code I find silly, parts of the code that make sense.

While there are exceptions, my default metric boils down to "Is this just for PvP? Well, that's kinda silly."

First strike? Silly: paladins strike first all the time in PvE. Killing? Silly: paladins kill all the time in PvE.

Meanwhile, stealth is consistent. I see nothing wrong with that, plus you can still learn the skill. It's applying it in certain context that's bad. Meanwhile, I find not being able to learn thievery at all rather silly. I'd rather see that tied to stealing itself.

Etc.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Sadly, I find myself completely agreeing with Tev on that post...sigh

Agreeing with Tev is always a hit to morale.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>What I would like to see is some lore that explains the hits.

Keep in mind that, when it comes to Necromancy being bad in the eyes of the Immortals, it's "Because I said so"

So I don't know if Paladins would get a more robust explanation from their betters.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

<Keep in mind that, when it comes to Necromancy being bad in the eyes of the Immortals, it's "Because I said so"

Nope. Heard a very good explanation from a Cleric that I don't think he created out of thin air. Wish I could remember it off the top of my head.

~~~
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

All sorcery is darkly irrational, destructive and volatile. It also has intense cultural baggage attached to it.

Necromancy is specific in not only having cultural baggage attached (and boy does it!), but being anathema to the gods.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas