Can the gods strip a paladin of his class?

[Agback]

You keep requesting specifics that you know are not there and are not meant to be there.

Good. You agree that these specifics are not there.

 

[Agback]

Yes...and...? Do you believe that the fact that the rules don't state "a paladin's powers can be taken away by his god, if he follows one" thereby proves that paladins are beyond the power of the god they serve

Nope. I conclude that (under the RAW and in the absence of any use of Rule Zero) the dependency of cleric spells on the gods is a special quality of clerics, and not a mere special case of the presumable power of gods to impose arbitrary ability loss on any character.

 

[Caliban]

Good. You agree that these specifics are not there.

Sounds like you already made up your mind before you posted. This thread strikes me as pointless.

Regardless of what you think the rules do or do not say, just tell the players up front "this is how it works in my campaign".

 

[irdeggman]

From the SRD RAW: a paladin gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells

The word divine means that the gained abilities are granted by a god (or goddess). If your campaign has no gods....then no paladins, clerics, druids, or spell casting rangers (bring back MM for rangers!!!!!) Paladins are the holy warriors (or unholy, axiomatic, whatever) of a certain dieties. Some do not have paladins (due to alignment, concept, etc.). Therefore, if you or people in your campaign wish to play a paladin be sure to understand that the code of conduct is granted by the diety you serve and poor service = loss of powers (also can lead to cool quests to regain said powers )

Oates

First off we need to recognize that D&D uses specifics terminology and has definitions for it that may or may not correspond to what those words mean in Real Life or in the dictionary.

This is one of them.

Per the RAW

from the PHB pg 307:

Divine spells: Spells of a religious origin powered by faith or by a deity. Clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers cast divine spells.

 

[irdeggman]

Sounds like you already made up your mind before you posted. This thread strikes me as pointless.

Regardless of what you think the rules do or do not say, just tell the players up front "this is how it works in my campaign".

This is the bottom line. As long as the player's know how things work in a game (before they are sprung on them) it's all good.

 

[Oates]

Not so, since the Ranger description in core rules explicitly states that rangers cast divine spells that are not granted by a deity.

Besides which, the word 'arcane' means 'secret'. Are you going to argue that wizards cast secret spells? And are you going to argue that a lich's phylactery contains Hebrew scriptures and is worn by Jewish men at morning prayers?

we are talking about paladins, not rangers, wizards or those of jewish faith...

 

[Oates]

First off we need to recognize that D&D uses specifics terminology and has definitions for it that may or may not correspond to what those words mean in Real Life or in the dictionary.

Certainly.

 

[Crothian]

Abilities don't have to be taken away for a character to become unable to use them. And most especially, they don't have to be taken away by a person. For example, a ranger whose hand is cut of loses the ability to dual-wield without a god taking it away, and a spellcaster who is subjected to an ability drain may lose bonus spells without a god having any say in the matter.

A god is not a character and that's a not even close as an example. These powers are in fact being taken away. It not because the character's wisdom or charimsa got to low preventing him from using his powers.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

But that is not, I believe, what I am doing in that statement. What I am doing, or at least trying to do, is to point out that a DM's or setting designer's freedom to make setting-specific rules about paladins also allows them to make setting-specific rules about, for example, barbarians.

A DM (or setting designer) is perfectly within his or her rights to declare that in his or her setting the gods have a power over paladin's class abilities, and the only basis on which we can judge this is whether it suits our personal tastes or not: "I like that" or "I don't like that", not "that is wrong". On exactly the same basis, a GM or setting designer is free to declare that in his or her setting barbarian rage is the gift of Odin, or that ranger spells, being divine magic, are the discretionary gift of Gea Mater.

Yes, I can agree with all of this. The fact that the paladin casts divine spells and has class abilities with names such as "Divine Grace" and "Divine Health," combined with a great deal of the flavor text for the class, ("Divine power protects the paladin and gives her special powers. It wards off harm, protects her from disease, lets her heal herself, and guards her heart against fear,") is a strong influence on many DMs to decide that paladins are strongly tied to the gods, despite the fact that a paladin need not worship a particular deity.

Paladins are also associated with clerics (which are explicitly tied to deities, as you note,) by the fact that they are the only two core classes to be able to turn undead.

But in the end, the RAW does not demand that paladins be connected to gods any more than barbarians or fighters, nor that their powers necessarily stem from them. Surely, the flavor text strongly infers it, but strictly by the letter of the law (the SRD in this case does an admirable job of removing the flavor text of the PHB and baring the rules,) you are correct.

Is that the entire purpose of this thread? Oi. You win. Next thread.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...If so, it would seem the gods can do nothing but censure their clerics, since nothing else has been explicitly allowed them...

I always interpreted it much as the U.S. Constitution is supposed to be interpreted:

Anything that is not specifically granted or denied to the deities by the Rules is up to the individual states... er, DMs to decide.

However, I had never noticed the implicit restriction on who Paladin powers can be granted to.

Sort of implies that the gods aren't in charge of it. Of course, it's really just a back door added in a gamist sense to allow "philosophical" or even "atheistic" paladins, but if someone wanted to be a Rules Lawyer, they are well within their rights to declare that their DM is against the rules by having a god strip their powers (unless of course there was a clear lay-out of such House Rules beforehand). And I've seen enough moral quandries in games where the paladin player did the most good possible and the DM decided to apply the god pincers anyway that I would be sympathetic.

"No, it's not 'what Torm would do' but it was even more morally correct, so I don't see the problem."

In many games, that would lead to "you're not a paladin anymore" or at best a lengthy, irritating side quest so this guy can get his powers back. However, if I read the rules correctly, a paladin who did not actually do evil or break his code should not lose his powers in that case, because his powers are not OF the god. They are OF Lawful Goodness.

The god is merely someone he respects and worships because of their similar worldview and vast divergence in relative power.

Interesting side note:
Barring the games that I have run myself since joining this community, I have NEVER played in a game where the House Rules were at all spelled out, PARTICULARLY where it comes to gods and paladins.

Most of you don't seem to think this is a problem, but perhaps none of you has ever invested 2 years in a character, and then had a power-tripping DM ruin the fun of the entire group for a couple months over a minor philosophical point.

I've left EVERY group but one since I started playing because of immature, attention-hogging, power-tripping DMs. MOST DMs are like that, IME. This is why I only play when I DM nowadays and the consequent time and player restrictions why I mostly just play World of WarCraft.

In games like those I have played, Agback's line of questioning here would have headed off a lot of problems, and my current dim view of the hobby as a function of its majority of players would perhaps have been avoided.