Paladin / Warlock Faith conflict query

[Cap'n Kobold]

The argument against this is, humans are free to worship one or all the gods, and most of the peoples do pay reverence to all of the ones important to them, but they aren't priests and paladins. The difference is that to be a cleric or paladin, they give their faith and devotion to one god only, and in return, that god grants its blessings.

I think that this is what Mallus was referring to as your setting's theological assumptions.
The concept that to be a Paladin in 5e, you need to give faith and devotion to a god is very much a setting-dependent houserule.
As is a Cleric not being able to serve a pantheon as a whole, and gods requiring worship to have power.

The question was how I handle conflicts that might arise, and this is how I handle it. If things work differently in your game world, then I don't know anything about that.

Blame Tolkien. He may not have had paladins, but he had the absolutism of Good and Evil down solid.

I think that the comment was more about the number of people who are requiring Paladins to worship a god, without realising that this is actually a houserule in 5e.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think that the comment was more about the number of people who are requiring Paladins to worship a god, without realising that this is actually a houserule in 5e.

It's not even really a house rule, so much as it's a setting detail.

I didn't really realize it until reading the above comments about Odysseus, but at some point after AD&D, there was a hard switch in the default setting from pseudo-Medieval European fantasy to Fantasy Kitchen Sink. In a traditional setting, paladins are holy warriors of a Lawful Good god of light and healing, while warlocks have literally made a deal with the devil and are shunned by everyone. AD&D also gave you the option of playing in Age of Mythology times, of course, but you weren't really supposed to have a paladin there because it wouldn't make any sense.

If you somehow have a setting where paladins exist alongside Greek-style pantheons of gods, and you have warlocks who get their power from something else entirely, then any conflict between those two (or three) sides is going to depend entirely on the specifics of this bizarre cosmology you're working under. Such a setting is far too weird to speculate upon in terms of generalities.

 

[schnee]

The question was how I handle conflicts that might arise, and this is how I handle it. If things work differently in your game world, then I don't know anything about that.

Blame Tolkien. He may not have had paladins, but he had the absolutism of Good and Evil down solid.

A LOT of pre-60's fiction had that issue, not just him.

Then, the 'new wave' hit, we had the crazy stuff of Ellison, Zelazny, Farmer, the studied ambiguity of LeGuin, and more...and absolutism was not the only game in town. That's been percolating in the genre for over 50 years now, so trying to pin it on Tolkein alone is a bit too reductionist for my tastes.

I'd chalk it up to a certain subset of players and GMs just preferring a black and white morality game. Like I said, I think it's unfortunate, but - after a DM allows multi-classing as an optional rule - any limitation on multi-classing beyond the ability score minimums in the PHB is house-ruling.

This is especially true with the Paladin class being explicitly blown wide open for alignments, purposes, and styles - and the Warlock adding Fey and Divine patrons. There's amazing thematic breadth there.

 

[pemerton]

While in game terms, there is nothing stopping this from happening, in story terms, it probably shouldn't be allowed. The reason for this is because divine magic is only granted to the most devoted and the most faithful. When your faith waivers, so does the magic.

Is this a rule, or your own view of things?

I don't think there's anything odd about playing a cleric whose faith wavers.

 

[neogod22]

In the general consensus, it's up to the DM. Most people trying to argue against a paladin needing a God's argument is pretty weak based on the fact that you're only arguing about needing it. So let's think about this. Suppose the paladin only needed faith in a principle, it's virtually the same thing. You can take a divine out of the picture and replace it with say for example justice. This will be harder for the paladin, because if he strays or falls, he can never redeem himself. If he feels his principles aren't strong enough that he has to make a deal with an entity for more power, he should immediately lose his paladin powers. His own lack of faith will be his undoing. This isn't even getting into what if the entity he made a deal with forces him to do things that contradicts his principles. Whether a paladin is a holy warrior of a god, or of justice, it's just hard to see them taking a back door deal and it's ok. A fighter/warlock who may have been a paladin at one point makes sense story-wise.

 

[neogod22]

Is this a rule, or your own view of things?

I don't think there's anything odd about playing a cleric whose faith wavers.

Did you read my first sentence, because that clearly answers your question. I have a question, does anyone here read the D&D books? Because a lot of insight on how the gods act and feel are in those books. I think 5th edition purposely left out the consequences of being a servant of a divine for the purpose of people not being scared of losing their powers if the sneezed the wrong way like in previous editions, but of you read the books, nothing's changed. Nothing says that once you begin channeling power from a Power, that is is powerless to stop you. It gives DMs flexibility on how they want to handle situations, and if you as a DM want to allow a paladin to serve 2 masters you can.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In the general consensus, it's up to the DM. Most people trying to argue against a paladin needing a God's argument is pretty weak based on the fact that you're only arguing about needing it.

Its less "arguing against" and more "pointing out what the rules actually say".
Its always up to the DM in the end, whether that is Paladins needing to worship something, or Wizards only coming from a single nation in the setting.

So let's think about this. Suppose the paladin only needed faith in a principle, it's virtually the same thing. You can take a divine out of the picture and replace it with say for example justice. This will be harder for the paladin, because if he strays or falls, he can never redeem himself. If he feels his principles aren't strong enough that he has to make a deal with an entity for more power, he should immediately lose his paladin powers. His own lack of faith will be his undoing. This isn't even getting into what if the entity he made a deal with forces him to do things that contradicts his principles. Whether a paladin is a holy warrior of a god, or of justice, it's just hard to see them taking a back door deal and it's ok. A fighter/warlock who may have been a paladin at one point makes sense story-wise.

It is the Oath of a Paladin that grants them their abilities. Whether that oath is sworn to a deity, or to their ancestors, or the blood of their murdered family, or anything else.
Now it is entirely possible, as you say, for a Paladin to fail to uphold their Oath. I'm not seeing why they would not be able to redeem it if they didn't worship a deity though. Its not the deity granting the power in the first place.

The Oath of Vengeance is to swear to defeat a specific evil whatever the cost. A devil offering just the right amount of power at the right time to help the Paladin achieve that is going to have a seriously tempting offer.

Remember that not all Warlocks have made a conscious choice to engage in a pact with another entity, and the cost isn't always going to be the warlocks soul, service, or anything that contradicts their principles.
I've had a celestial pact warlock become a Paladin by swearing their oath to their patron - I'd imagine that that would be relatively common amongst Oath of the Ancients paladins as well.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Did you read my first sentence, because that clearly answers your question. I have a question, does anyone here read the D&D books? Because a lot of insight on how the gods act and feel are in those books.

By D&D books, are we talking previous edition's rulebooks? Core rules or splatbooks?
Novels set in one of the settings? (if so, which setting?)

I think 5th edition purposely left out the consequences of being a servant of a divine for the purpose of people not being scared of losing their powers if the sneezed the wrong way like in previous editions, but of you read the books, nothing's changed. Nothing says that once you begin channeling power from a Power, that is is powerless to stop you. It gives DMs flexibility on how they want to handle situations, and if you as a DM want to allow a paladin to serve 2 masters you can.

"Servant of the Divine" would be a Cleric, since they are the only class in the PHB at least that actually serves a deity. Its left to the DM because there is a lot of table variation, and setting variation in how gods behave. For example in FR, the gods take an active interest and guidance, and might actually remove the powers of a cleric that didn't uphold their tenets. In Eberron, a cleric that truly believes that they are serving their deity will not lose their powers even for doing things that would appear to be directly against what their deity stands for. Only one of the Eberron deities is capable of speaking directly to the cleric to offer guidance and warnings.

 

[TwoSix]

I have a question, does anyone here read the D&D books? Because a lot of insight on how the gods act and feel are in those books.

Wait...there are books???

In all seriousness, I think most of the posters here are experienced enough to take the book flavor as, at most, a light suggestion. The bigger question becomes "Does restricting player choice in this instance enhance your setting verisimilitude?" I think there are cases where restrictions help, but I don't think in this case it does. With the exception that you've set up a campaign where the gods take personal interest in the mortals that use divine power, AND a warlock pact stands in intrinsic opposition to the goals of those gods.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*