Pathfinder 2's Armor & A Preview of the Paladin!

TheCosmicKid said:

5E has touch AC, it's just hiding. "Touch attacks" like rust monster antennae call for Dex saves instead of attack rolls.

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IMO, the attacker should always roll the d20. Not have different people roll based on whether it's a lighting bolt of lighting or a crossbow bolt. It was one of the good ideas in 4e.

i.e.
Fireball is 1d20+Int+stuff vs 10+Dex+stuff. (or maybe Dex score + stuff).
Hold Person is 1d20+Int+stuff vs 10+Wis+stuff.
Ect...


But really, there's already 8 number to keep track of (HP, AC, Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha), no need to add TAC on top of it.

pemerton said:

Well, I didn't force you to reply to my post - but apprently you care enough to do so!

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I apologize, this likely came off more brusquely than intended. I was intending this as a question regarding whether you, personally, truly do not care. I ask because from the tone of your posts, it seems like you do.

pemerton said:

If you assume that paladins are, per se, foolish, naive, uptopian etc then yes, you either simply allow that they will fail, or - as PF2 seems to - you build that into the code.

Personally I don't see the attraction of playing, or GMing, a paladin under such an assumption. I mean, when a player wants to play a thief do we build into our starting assumptions for the game that crime doesn't pay? When a player wants to play a fighter, do we build into our starting assumption that one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword?

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I think those assumptions are fairly normal starting assumptions for most normal settings. I've not seen a game where a thief will commit crimes at random without fear of consequences. Likewise I've not seen fighters enter games under the assumption that they can put villages to the sword without consequences. In point of fact, D&D adventuring parties are often conscripted to reinforce the validity of those very assumptions ("Kill these bandits who are harassing travelers and tradesmen on the road" is a fairly vanilla quest for a D&D adventuring party). For all three of these, it's not about the presumption of failure, it's about the possibility of failure and the presence of consequences for good or ill.

As it applies to paladins, the notion that you and others have put forward is that they are fundamentally romantic characters. Definitionally, romantic characters are at their core idealistic (heck, Merriam-Webster definitions for "romantic" include "[FONT=&quot]having no basis in fact" and "[/FONT][FONT=&quot]impractical in conception or plan")[/FONT]. Presumably they don't live in ideal worlds, or there would be no need for adventurers. Thus, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for there to be situations that test, strain, or otherwise jeopardize the belief-system of the paladin. Heroes don't always have to win and it's frequently more interesting when they don't.

To be clear, I'm not saying all paladins should always be morally compromised or that they should always lose. I get that accomplishing impossible things is heroic and part of the reason for playing RPGs. But there is no triumph without adversity, and I fail to see why a paladin's beliefs need to be excluded from consideration for such adversity.

zztong said:

I've always thought this way too, but it isn't the majority opinion in an alignment discussion. Yes, to me, it always seemed that if I were going to require an alignment for a Paladin, that NG seemed like the obvious choice.

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The difference between chaotic and lawful, is the classic debate of, the one versus the many.

• The many of law, is society, collectivism, enforcing merit.
• The one of chaos, is personhood, individualism, compassion for its own sake.

The optimal Good is optimizing between them. Sometimes siding with the individual over the collective is the Good thing to do.

True Good (Neutral Good) *always* chooses whatever is *most* Good in any situation.



Law and Chaos are like Yang (collectivism) and Yin (individualism), respectively.

The Dao that optimizes between Yang and Yin, is the highest Good. It is a path that transcends the opposites.

The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.

Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.



By contrast, True Good (pure Good, Neutral Good) never compromises Good.

TheCosmicKid said:

Okay. Let's back up a minute. There's a recurring pattern in our conversation: I propose an interpretation of lawful goodness which allows paladins to function, and then you impose different definitions on the scenario (often, as here, by putting words in my mouth) which create contradiction and dysfunction. Why? What are you hoping to accomplish here? Are you trying to persuade me that I should abandon an interpretation that works for an one that doesn't? Why would I do that? And why would you want me to do that? If your readings of "law" and "good" break the system, should you really be so insistent that those readings are the correct ones? If you're really interested in this problem, wouldn't it make more sense to give a good-faith effort at understanding how I've resolved it?

Concrete example: paladin opposes an evil law.

You say that the paladin is drinking straight vodka.
I say that the paladin is rejecting the orange juice they've been served, and insisting on a screwdriver.

Your interpretation renders the lawful good alignment impossible: the paladin ends up either neutral good or lawful neutral (at best). My interpretation preserves lawful goodness as a coherent concept. So what is there to recommend your interpretation? Why are you trying to twist my words into something which, as you are not just conceding but loudly promoting, does not make sense?

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My objection, such as it is, is that the understanding of a Lawful Good paladin that you propose makes it indistinguishable from any other good-aligned paladin. And it further leads to strange comparisons; that dashing rogue that steals from the corrupt wealthy nobles and gives to the oppressed poor: Chaotic Good; switch in a dashing paladin performing the same actions: Lawful Good (because they follow a transcendent law).

I think where I differ with you is that I don't see a need for any particular character concept to be coherent at all times. Real people are frequently incoherent, I see no reason characters can't be as well. They needn't always be that way, and I'm perfectly prepared to agree that laws often achieve justice and good often results. That said, it seems odd to me to handwave away any existence of tension between lawfulness and goodness which might motivate the LG paladin (or any other LG character) to act against some component of their normal alignment.

Gammadoodler said:

My objection, such as it is, is that the understanding of a Lawful Good paladin that you propose makes it indistinguishable from any other good-aligned paladin. And it further leads to strange comparisons; that dashing rogue that steals from the corrupt wealthy nobles and gives to the oppressed poor: Chaotic Good; switch in a dashing paladin performing the same actions: Lawful Good (because they follow a transcendent law).

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How are they indistinguishable? Because they make the same basic choice under one specific circumstance? I don't think that is so outlandish. A chaotic good character and a lawful good character are probably both going to obey a law against murder, too; the chaotic good guy isn't going to feel some urge to kill just because laws are bad. It doesn't follow from this that they will make the same choice in every circumstance, or that even when they do make the same choice, their means and overall goals are the same. When faced with a corrupt law that must be opposed, your dashing rogue is more likely to oppose it through outlaw behavior, whereas your dashing paladin? Probably something more like what today we would call civil disobedience. The details are going to depend on the particular character, of course.

Gammadoodler said:

I think where I differ with you is that I don't see a need for any particular character concept to be coherent at all times. Real people are frequently incoherent, I see no reason characters can't be as well. They needn't always be that way, and I'm perfectly prepared to agree that laws often achieve justice and good often results. That said, it seems odd to me to handwave away any existence of tension between lawfulness and goodness which might motivate the LG paladin (or any other LG character) to act against some component of their normal alignment.

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I'd ask what you think it means to hold an alignment. To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole. Whatever tension you think might be there has been resolved at least to their satisfaction; if it were not, they would be neutral good or lawful neutral. Yeah, of course there are going to be situations where figuring out what the right thing to do is difficult, but they're not going to be as obvious, or as blatantly a matter of law vs. good, as "What if evil law?" I hardly think it's a handwave to give the paladin credit for having figured that one out already.

Yaarel said:

The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.

Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.

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The classic (i.e., 2E) paladin falls permanently and irrevocably if they ever commit an evil act, but can atone if they commit a chaotic act. So compromise of any sort is highly discouraged, but if any compromising does occur, it's gonna be in favor of good.

Yaarel said:

The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.

Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.



By contrast, True Good (pure Good, Neutral Good) never compromises Good.

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As I see it, Lawful Good sees the law as the best path toward maximizing good within the world. A Lawful Good paladin will generally not sacrifice Good in the name of Law, since the whole point of being lawful is to encourage goodness; and the ones who do put the law ahead of the good, are the ones who become prime examples of Lawful Stupid.

Really, the whole Good-Evil axis is all about your goals, and the Law-Chaos axis is about your methods. At least, that's how I see it.

TheCosmicKid said:

How are they indistinguishable? Because they make the same basic choice under one specific circumstance? I don't think that is so outlandish. A chaotic good character and a lawful good character are probably both going to obey a law against murder, too; the chaotic good guy isn't going to feel some urge to kill just because laws are bad. It doesn't follow from this that they will make the same choice in every circumstance, or that even when they do make the same choice, their means and overall goals are the same. When faced with a corrupt law that must be opposed, your dashing rogue is more likely to oppose it through outlaw behavior, whereas your dashing paladin? Probably something more like what today we would call civil disobedience. The details are going to depend on the particular character, of course.

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It's that both the lawful good and chaotic good paladin are similarly unconstrained by societal constructs (traditional law and the attendant expectations that come with it) and both justify their freedom from constraint by claiming adherence to their alignment. The chaotic good paladin can say, I "go my own way, a better way". The lawful good paladin can say "I follow a higher law". But to an outsider, they're both just folks who aren't doing what they've been told.

As far as methodologies, as you said, that is going to be character and situation specific. The point is that, as it's been presented, the lawful good paladin may take any action a chaotic good or neutral good paladin would take, using the exact same methodologies, go with a "higher law" rationale, and hey..still lawful. This is where "indistinguishable" comes from. Where are the sticking points, as you see them?

TheCosmicKid said:

I'd ask what you think it means to hold an alignment. To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole. Whatever tension you think might be there has been resolved at least to their satisfaction; if it were not, they would be neutral good or lawful neutral. Yeah, of course there are going to be situations where figuring out what the right thing to do is difficult, but they're not going to be as obvious, or as blatantly a matter of law vs. good, as "What if evil law?" I hardly think it's a handwave to give the paladin credit for having figured that one out already.

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I see alignment as descriptive of a character's motivations and actions from the perspective of external parties, specifically some combination of other characters in the world, and the players and DM at the table. The character's internal synthesis of their ideology is functional rationalization. It may be reasonably consistent with how others in the game world view them, if the character possesses the requisite powers of self-reflection, or it may not.

Separately, while I'd quibble with the notion of giving the romantic muscly guy who swings a shining sword credit for "figuring stuff out", the original point of the dilemma, as presented by [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION] was simply looking forward to finding the behavioral margins for LG paladins if all paladins in PF2 are going to be required to hold that alignment. And thus far, it seems to be your position that those margins do not exist. I happen to think that's kind of a strange.

TheCosmicKid said:

To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole.

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Well, it seems to me that they have a set of values they're committed to - wellbeing, rights, truth, beauty - and they also have a belief about how those values can be realised - namely, via establishing social organisation, respecting tradition, etc.