D&D 5E Cleric vs Paladin: Concepts and Mechanical realisation

[Greg Benage]

Early clerics were holy warriors. At some point, paladin's became a thing in D&D and supplanted the Cleric, creating two similar but different classes.

The "original cleric" was a weird hybrid of Knight Templar (complete with a "cross" instead of a "holy symbol") and a vampire-hunter (meant to deal with a particular PC vampire - Sir Fang). It's always been an oddball with no coherent literary or historical genealogy. In that regard, it's the most D&D of the D&D classes, for better or worse.

By contrast, the paladin is more or less straight out of the Song of Roland, probably by way of Poul Anderson.

 

[Vicaring]

In the early game, both often came off as being pseudo-/quasi-/vaguely Christian, but the Paladin more so with his LG requirement and strict code. If you didn't care for that feel so much, the Paladin might appeal even less than the Cleric.

In the early game, the reason why Clerics were limited to blunt weapons was because of the very specific Christian forbiddance of clergy to shed blood. In the crusades, most notably the Teutonic Crusades against the Lithuanians, there are documented instances of clergy actually fighting on the battlefield, and guess what, they used blunt weapons.

And someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never been under the assumption that holy orders of knighthood only used bludgeoning weapons and were less effective combatants (less hp, attack bonus) than other warriors.

See above. And no, while "holy orders of knighthood", such as the Knights Templar or Knights Hospitaller or Holy Equestrian Order of whatever weren't forbidden from using bladed weapons, Clergy most certainly were.

The way I see it, I agree with what they show more than what they say. And what the game has shown since at least since AD&D is cleric = priest and priest = cleric (or druid).

Paladins are not, and never have been, shown as priests. They are holy knight-like warriors.

From that perspective--which has been shown consistently in the D&D lore--the distinction between cleric and paladin is simple.

And there is no good reason not to do it that way.

While you raise a valid point here, in that this is indeed what the game shows, I would argue against that interpretation. Cleric does not equal Priest. It never has, and it never will, for one reason: the character classes are heroic, and are not suitable representations of the everyman. I'm sorry, but Father John down at Saint Matthew's isn't a Cleric, as represented in this game. But he most certainly is a Priest.

And that's the point that I think people are trying to raise here: the Cleric, as portrayed in this game, is already a Holy Warrior, and once you go with one of the warrior-esque domains, he becomes even moreso. What then is the point of the Paladin?

It was a lot simpler back in Red Box D&D days, when there weren't any Paladins. Clerics were the Paladins. Everybody knew that. The problem was in the blunt weapons. People asked why their "holy warriors" should be limited in weapon selection.

So when 1e came around, TSR decided, instead of just getting rid of the blunt weapons business, they'd introduce the Paladin, who would really truly be a knight-class. There's your Knight Templars right there. But the problem then became, what then were the Clerics? Easy: the Clerics were Priestly heal-bots. You need one in your party, but only really to heal everybody else. You needed to visit temples, but only because one of your party members kicked the proverbial can. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.

Then 2e came around, and they started introducing things like "Domains" and the such, where Clerics were entirely different animals, and one Cleric only vaguely resembled another Cleric, and it was all based on which gods they rather arbitrarily worshipped. Some of them worshipped war gods like Ares, and could then use spears, and got kickass war spells. And this was good, because Clerics were back to being something other than just heal-bots or mobile self-refreshing heal-potions. But, like always, by "fixing" one thing, something else breaks.

You can see where I'm going. As soon as they did this, when they got rid of the ridiculous "blunt weapons only" rule, that's when this existential crisis occurred for the Paladin, because seriously, what is the difference between a Cleric (holy warrior) with a sword and a Paladin (holy warrior) with a sword?

Quite frankly, it's high time to be done with this entire business, which has been argued now for 4 consecutive editions of D&D. The "blunt weapons only" rule was the only reason for the Paladin to exist as a class, lore-wise. Give Clerics access to those sweet smite spells, and kill the Paladin concept. If you must have a "Knightly" class in your game, because Holy Equestrian Orders of Purple Dragonfly Knights of the Round Table Templars wicked cool yeah then strip the class of its clerical magic and make a Cavalier.

The "original cleric" was a weird hybrid of Knight Templar (complete with a "cross" instead of a "holy symbol") and a vampire-hunter (meant to deal with a particular PC vampire - Sir Fang). It's always been an oddball with no coherent literary or historical genealogy. In that regard, it's the most D&D of the D&D classes, for better or worse.

Correct. And was a Holy Warrior, as evidenced by the fact that he could wear heavy armor, which has been a feature of the Cleric class since day one.

The Cleric has never been a Priest, even if they are sometimes rather lazily portrayed that way (or rather, the revese, that entire priesthoods are portrayed as being Clerics).

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

That's a myth, about the holier than thou stick up your butt. They just had to be lawful good. That never meant awful good. If there was a problem there, that's a player issue, not a class design issue. There are plenty of non paladin lawful good PCs that are just fine. Nothing in the class description said you had to be an arrogant jerk about it. In fact, there have been numerous Dragon articles addressing that issue because too many people bought into the myth.

its not so much their requirement in Ad&d to be LG but their requirement to only associate with good PCs and LG henchmen and only ally to non L neutral characters for one adventure; the tithing and the continual protection from good aura...it just smacked of holier than thou, much holier than clerics: it set them up as a very Christian class which struck me as being at odds with the tone of D&D - I could picture a cleric of Thor but not a paladin of Thor for that reason.

And yes it is a bias, an irrational one perhaps, but the class left me cold. I have always been influenced by flavour over crunch. From such an early age it left its mark as being out of step.

Tomato, tomato.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You can see where I'm going. As soon as they did this, when they got rid of the ridiculous "blunt weapons only" rule, that's when this existential crisis occurred for the Paladin, because seriously, what is the difference between a Cleric (holy warrior) with a sword and a Paladin (holy warrior) with a sword?

Simple. Clerics are pious. Paladins are chivalrous.

This whole "Paladins serve The Gods" thing that WotC invented smacks way too much of Jar-jar Binks for my taste. At my table they are in no sense priests. You're more likely to meet a Paladin of Vengeance preaching Marxism or Social Darwinism (and working in the fields with peasants to improve their lives) than Hermes and Zeus-worship.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

@Vicaring: It sort of depends on what you mean by "Priest," doesn't it? Because I don't see anything wrong with having the Priest archetype produce heroes any more than the Cleric archetype does--they're just subtly different. 2e Specialty Priests captured some of that--they didn't always get the good armor. The 3e Cloistered Cleric absolutely covered it, being an inherently Knowledge/Skill-focused variant that dropped most of the 'warrior' aspects of the Cleric. And then in 4e, the Cleric was only moderately armored (a step below Fighters, who were a step below the best--only Paladins start with plate in 4e) and could go purely "pacifist"; further, it was joined (with PHB2) by the Invoker, who more fully captured the robe-wearing, "call down the fire" type character. And, of course, 5e includes the Light, Knowledge, and Trickery domains, which don't boost the Cleric above its inherent Medium proficiency.

So for, what, four editions running? Something like that--we've had direct support for the robe-wearing, cross- holy symbol-brandishing kind of Cleric, even if it didn't precisely go by that name.

I think part of the issue may also be the meanings we pack into these words. It sounds like "Priest," to you, connotes someone mundane and administrative--a scholar or contemplative who needs to be saved by the people who are Real Heroes. I don't personally think it has such a connotation--if I wanted to make that particular distinction in D&D, I'd probably use "minister" or "clergyman/woman" rather than "priest," because it's someone who only serves their deity by ministering to the faithful, performing requisite sacred rites, and administering the theopolitical structure. In 4e and 5e terms, a Priest is a divinely-powered character who relies (almost) wholly on spells and generally eschews armor, while a minister is someone with Ordained Priest (4e theme) or Acolyte (5e background)--and therefore can still potentially be a player character. Being a minister is primarily a social position (as the 4e article that introduced the Ordained Priest notes) and often carries very religion-specific titles (of which that article lists nine potential options, and I can think of at least two more). Being a Cleric or Priest in D&D says much more about what you can do than your specific social position.

But all of that is pretty tangential to the question of the thread.

In my opinion:
Clerics are fundamentally representatives of the faith. Be they missionaries, scholars, wrathful judges, healers...doesn't matter. They are there to bring the message of their deity to all the far places, to explain that message to those who don't understand, to clarify and reinforce that message for the faithful, and to call down divine fire when needed.
Paladins are fundamentally holy soldiers: they aren't Fighters, because their prowess on the battlefield comes no less from godly(/philosophical) strength than it does from their own, but nor are they Clerics, because their job is not to interpret Divine Will for the faithful, nor to proselytize to those who don't believe. Their job is to stand as the bulwark between the faithful and Anathema; to win battles in their deity's(/cause's) name.

Clerics have had decent armor because proselytizing in most D&D worlds is dangerous business, but frequently have not had the very best armor because fighting--while important--is not always the core of the Cleric's identity. Paladins always have the best armor because fighting very much is core to their identity. Clerics are Empowered Prophets. Paladins are Holy Soldiers.*

(Invokers share the "Empowered Prophets" moniker, splitting it along support-y lines for Clerics and angel-summoning/divine-fire-calling for Invokers. Avengers are Inquisitors, the "internal affairs" branch of this metaphorical "Divine Military." 4e split these two classes out; 5e has, with debatable success, tried to fold them into the Cleric and Paladin respectively while still preserving some small part of their identity via subclass features.)

I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with @Hemlock though. On the one hand, my visceral reaction was (1) "What do you mean, Paladins don't [ever] serve the gods?" and (2) "You did not just compare my favorite class to Jar-Jar Binks. Take it back." But on the other, I have exactly zero problems with the two sentences that followed that. I don't believe Paladins need to serve any god; it is devotion to something that makes them what they are, not necessarily a deific figure. I wrote literally all of this post prior to this paragraph before reading Hemlock's post, so my addition of things like "(/philosophical) strength" has nothing to do with taking his words into account. My bigger problem is the statement (or, at least, strong implication) that Paladins DO NOT serve any gods, ever, period, end of discussion--I cannot agree with that, and if it is what Hemlock meant then unfortunately I must unfortunately disagree.

Neither Clerics nor Paladins, IMO, need to minister to the faithful, though Clerics are slightly more natural to that role (ironically, despite not having any particular use for Cha in 5e!) But not needing to minister to the faithful emphatically does not mean they cannot do so--and multiple Paladins I've played have, in fact, become leaders and representatives of their faith in a purely social sense, while still living their adventuring lives in the "soldier of god" sense. (One was in Dungeon World, where Paladins are nearly as much of casters as Clerics are if you elect to it, as I did, so that's a bit of a grey area, I'll admit.)

*Edit: With the caveat that, as the preceding sentences tried to state, "Holy" does not mean "comes from a god." Holiness, in a D&D context, has a broader meaning.

 

[Vicaring]

It sort of depends on what you mean by "Priest," doesn't it? Because I don't see anything wrong with having the Priest archetype produce heroes any more than the Cleric archetype does--they're just subtly different. 2e Specialty Priests captured some of that--they didn't always get the good armor. The 3e Cloistered Cleric absolutely covered it, being an inherently Knowledge/Skill-focused variant that dropped most of the 'warrior' aspects of the Cleric. And then in 4e, the Cleric was only moderately armored (a step below Fighters, who were a step below the best--only Paladins start with plate in 4e) and could go purely "pacifist"; further, it was joined (with PHB2) by the Invoker, who more fully captured the robe-wearing, "call down the fire" type character. And, of course, 5e includes the Light, Knowledge, and Trickery domains, which don't boost the Cleric above its inherent Medium proficiency.

So for, what, four editions running? Something like that--we've had direct support for the robe-wearing, cross- holy symbol-brandishing kind of Cleric, even if it didn't precisely go by that name.

That's entirely true, yes. And also, for four editions running we've had direct support for the heavy-armor wearing, sword-wielding and shield-carrying and infidel-smiting kind of Cleric, and for four editions running we've had the question of what exactly is a Paladin's place in the lore of things with that kind of Cleric out there.

Clerics are Holy Warriors. They are also other things, depending upon your particular flavor, but Holy Warrior is one. Paladins are Holy Warriors. What then, lore-wise, is the difference? They both fulfill the same function in the campaign world.

I don't believe Paladins need to serve any god; it is devotion to something that makes them what they are, not necessarily a deific figure.

I hear what both you and Hemlock are saying, and I don't actually disagree with it. I personally really like the "Oath of the Crown" Paladin subclass as presented in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and can really wrap my head around that, and I like that it seems WoTC might be moving that direction with the Paladin; which is getting back to what I was saying earlier: make the Paladin more of a traditional chivalrous Knight. Drop the faith-based magic, keep the smites and such, re-flavored as something less religion-centric, and there you go.

All of that to say, In Other Words, give me back my Knights of Solamnia

EDIT: I said earlier that Clerics have never been Priests. I should perhaps have said that Clerics originally were not priests. And when I say originally, I mean way back in the red-box day. Everything changed with 2e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's entirely true, yes. And also, for four editions running we've had direct support for the heavy-armor wearing, sword-wielding and shield-carrying and infidel-smiting kind of Cleric, and for four editions running we've had the question of what exactly is a Paladin's place in the lore of things with that kind of Cleric out there.

My point was that you were drawing a hard line--"Cleric" IS NOT "Priest," ever, end of discussion--and I was saying that hard line doesn't really exist. Clerics can be Priests, and Priests can be Clerics, and as you yourself noted, many games effectively make the priesthood of any given deity almost exclusively Clerics. When people think of "Priests" in D&D-style class terms, they generally think of something like the Final Fantasy "White Mage" class, and in general the Cleric is the closest you can get to that in any edition of D&D you might care to name--even the oldest of them. The fact that the Cleric includes some fighting capacity doesn't diminish the fact that "Priest" is also lurking in there, somewhere, as a "White Mage" class archetype--whereas the Paladin has no trace of it.

Clerics are Holy Warriors. They are also other things, depending upon your particular flavor, but Holy Warrior is one. Paladins are Holy Warriors. What then, lore-wise, is the difference? They both fulfill the same function in the campaign world.

Are, or can be Holy Warriors? Because from where I'm looking at it, Clerics can be pushed in that direction if that's what you want, but Paladins essentially cannot choose not to be holy warriors--which is an important distinction. Just like how Fighters can be pushed in the direction of woodland lore and tracking skill, but Rangers cannot choose not to have those things.

And *do* Clerics always fulfill exactly the same functions as Paladins in all campaign worlds? I disagree--that is, they don't have to fulfill the same function, and the Cleric includes some things that the Paladin does not.

Besides, Sorcerers and Wizards "fulfill the same function" even more than Paladins and Clerics do. It's not like this is a new thing.

I hear what both you and Hemlock are saying, and I don't actually disagree with it. I personally really like the "Oath of the Crown" Paladin subclass as presented in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and can really wrap my head around that, and I like that it seems WoTC might be moving that direction with the Paladin; which is getting back to what I was saying earlier: make the Paladin more of a traditional chivalrous Knight. Drop the faith-based magic, keep the smites and such, re-flavored as something less religion-centric, and there you go.

All of that to say, In Other Words, give me back my Knights of Solamnia

Which is a fair request to make--and probably satisfied by the Oath of the Crown, if the KoS have any spell-like abilities. I've never actually read anything specific about them (my only exposure to them was via the Planar Sphere quests in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn), so I don't know how close it is. Believe it or not, I'm perfectly okay with dropping magic specifically in the form of spells, though I think Paladins definitely need to be "magical" in some sense to explain stuff like Lay on Hands and smiting and such. The big issue, at this point, is that Paladins have had several of their core class features offloaded into spells; the old Paladin's Mount feature has been turned into the Find Steed spell, and doing something other than/in addition to Radiant damage requires spells too. Creating a spell-less Paladin in 5e would be a much trickier balancing act than the spell-less Ranger was, because of all that. Not impossible, mind, but you'd have to account for significant loss of resources AND change the resource mechanic for Smiting so that it remains balanced (because without spell slots, you ain't doin' no Smiting!)

EDIT: I said earlier that Clerics have never been Priests. I should perhaps have said that Clerics originally were not priests. And when I say originally, I mean way back in the red-box day. Everything changed with 2e.

Ah, I had focused on the "never," but if you really meant "originally" then much of my argument disappears. Fair enough.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Early clerics were holy warriors. At some point, paladin's became a thing in D&D and supplanted the Cleric, creating two similar but different classes.

The paladin class is as old as the thief class. They officially came out in 1975 with the Greyhawk supplement, but were played in Gary's campaign before that. According to Rob Kuntz, the paladin was based off of Holger Carlson from "Three Hearts and Three Lions".

So I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say that paladins supplanted the cleric, since they came out pretty close to the same time. At least in the context of D&D's history. Clerics were never meant to be knights of a sort. Hence the birth of the paladin. Clerics were originally created because a player was playing a vampire character, so it was a class to represent vampire hunters in combination with Odo of Bayeux.

 

[Sacrosanct]

EDIT: I said earlier that Clerics have never been Priests. I should perhaps have said that Clerics originally were not priests. And when I say originally, I mean way back in the red-box day. Everything changed with 2e.

The pedantic old fart in me says, "Red box was not original. There was almost a decade of D&D before the red box came out."

 

[greyauthor]

I've never really payed attention to the cleric class until 5E. There was something about how the edition presented them that I suddenly saw possibility, flexibility and ultimately interest. Mechanically, it is the group-buff, heal-bot still--but there somehow seems to be more texture and depth.