D&D 5E Is Anyone Unhappy About Non-LG Paladins?

[Tequila Sunrise]

Just curious.

 

[GMMichael]

Alignments are soooo 1984.

 

[Stormonu]

Not to my liking, but easily houseruled.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Considering one of my homebrewed campaign worlds relies on a certain sect of Paladins to be CG, then no, not unhappy at all.

And if we want to get historical, I wouldn't consider hardly any of Charlemagne's Paladins as LG. Neither would the Saxons. I'd also not consider many of King Arthur's knights to be LG. I think the honorable knight trope has a wide enough range in history, literature, and of course modern fantasy, to be comfortable without an alignment requirement.

The obvious answer to anyone that wants LG paladins would, of course, to house rule it. You won't even have to write it down.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Yes, but its a minor strike for me. From all the alignment-restricted class, it is the paladin that makes me less confortable with though i must say. I've played (and still play!) older editions and i'm jus used to have neutral druid, lawful monk, good ranger, lawful good paladin etc.. and for me opposite alignments for those classes just feel weird..

But going more open and leaving me with the option to enforce alignment restriction if desired works for me. The only area where this will probably be unegociable is with Organized Play program suh as Adventurer's League as it will most likely use a common set of rules with no leeway for DM to really derogate from.

 

[Agamon]

I'm happy alignment is neither a restriction nor tied into mechanics.

 

[Texicles]

Motorola, since Samsung wasn't an option.

I think it's good for 5e. As I've said since I joined these boards at the start of the playtest, more options are better than less.

But, there is a little twinge of nostalgic regret. It's just been so thematic to the class for so long. "Lawful stupid" could get a little old at times, but if the whole table was on board, trying to flim flam the paladin's LG schtick could be a lot of fun.

I'd like there to be a sidebar about LG-only paladins, just so future generations who start by picking up the books know about such a thing.

 

[Ruzak]

I always liked the restriction and thought it gave an elite status to the paladin.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm in the camp of being not particularly happy about paladins, period.

That being said, taking a word that has noble connotations and trying to ignore them is not a particularly good idea. Trying to make a non-good divine warrior, on the other hand, is a good idea.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

If the playtest is any indication, the paladin class entry will mention which alignments the paladins of various oaths tend to. I'm pretty sure that the Oath of Devotion one we are seeing is going to mention something along the lines of LG. Take a look at the "Oath of Devotion" intro paragraph in the October playtest for an example. It specifically mentions law and good.

So at least they are saying that the Oath of Devotion is, by default, and oath to a LG deity or principle, regardless of the paladin's own alignment.

Then there is the Oath of Vengeance for avengers, and I'm sure there is some sort of blackguard oath, and if we're really lucky (and I'm not counting on it) maybe the green knight paladin from earlier in the playtest will be resurrected for the PHB.

So what I'm saying is that they aren't removing the idea of alignment from the fluff text around the class. Only one subclass (the Oath of Devotion) is representative of what has traditionally been a paladin in D&D, and it specifically mentions law and good in the fluff.

Really, if you want to allow a paladin devoted to chaos and good, you have to refluff it, or create a whole new Oath, because the book probably isn't going to offer that option.

So when a new player is opening up the book and reading the classical knight in shining armor subclass, they are going to read that they swear an oath of devotion to law and good, and that is going to be their first exposure to a D&D paladin.