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

Halivar · Jul 15, 2014

evileeyore said:
Your Paladins, if they stay to their nature, will never commit incest (King Arthur), commit adultery (Lancelot du Lac), be incompetent braggarts and troublemakers (Sir Kay), use dark magic to seduce (Sir Bedivere), or use deception to cover their illegal activities (Sir Tristan)?

Note only one of these "lost his place" (Sir Lancelot) at the Round Table (where only the best and most virtous can sit) because of the transgression and only one is ever really considered a 'villian' (Sir Bedivere) in the older accounts (the townsfolk often called for his hanging).

The Arthurian legends were very much a morality fable. Every time these knights strayed from the good and noble, they were afflicted. Lancelot was forever barred from seeing the grail; Arthur himself died as a result of his sins, via Mordred; note that this connection was not lost on medieval readers.

But in any event, the knights of the round table reveal themselves to be piss-poor candidates for paladinhood (no detect evil! See?

). Maybe they can be some of those new CG paladins. I hear Saxon gods have lower expectations.

evileeyore said:
Is this from where your "uncorruptable" Paladins come? And a character of mine in your game should believe in their "purity" why again? Because the game rules say they are Lawful Good or else?

Nope. It isn't where they come from.

But, in their defense, I'll say the idea shouldn't be thrown out completely. As an example: the founding fathers of the US were slave owners, and yet the passage of time has changed the meaning of their words "all men are created equal" to be more egalitarian than they intended. So it is with chivalry; many knights back then were total asses. Nevertheless, the essence of their (well, really Charlemagne's own paladins, not the knights of the round) ideals, distilled down to its purest, most unadulterated form, is what inspires the paladin as envisioned in 1st edition.

billd91 · Jul 15, 2014

evileeyore said:
Sure, it was hyperbolic.

How about these then:

Your Paladins, if they stay to their nature, will never commit incest (King Arthur), commit adultery (Lancelot du Lac), be incompetent braggarts and troublemakers (Sir Kay), use dark magic to seduce (Sir Bedivere), or use deception to cover their illegal activities (Sir Tristan)?

Note only one of these "lost his place" (Sir Lancelot) at the Round Table (where only the best and most virtous can sit) because of the transgression and only one is ever really considered a 'villian' (Sir Bedivere) in the older accounts (the townsfolk often called for his hanging).

Keep in mind, Kay and Bedivere were also King Arthur's closest friends and advisors....

Is this from where your "uncorruptable" Paladins come? And a character of mine in your game should believe in their "purity" why again? Because the game rules say they are Lawful Good or else?

1) Why would you assume Kay and Bedivere were paladins at all much less ones that were in good standing?
2) Which Arthurian legends are you using as your source of truth? Because they differ. A lot.
3) Are you assuming that doing something in ignorance, like having sex with a half-sister you didn't know was your half-sister, is the same as doing it intentionally? I doubt either Arthur or Morgause would have jumped in the sack with each other had they known.

And, Halivar's right. There is nothing stopping a paladin from raping and murdering... except for the fact that it would be out of the PC's crafted character. If it were in his character, I doubt a player would make him a LG paladin, unless he wants his inevitable fall to be part of the story they play out in the campaign. But ultimately, that's true of all RPG characters. There are very few games with hard rules preventing PCs from committing murder or all sorts of other nefarious crimes - but a lot of characters don't do those things because it's not way the players wants them to be. It's not in their character.

evileeyore · Jul 15, 2014

billd91 said:
1) Why would you assume Kay and Bedivere were paladins at all much less ones that were in good standing?

They sat at the Round Table, the high seat that Stood For Something, just as your Aligment Restrictions "stand for something".

2) Which Arthurian legends are you using as your source of truth? Because they differ. A lot.

I know. The further back you go the worse Knights tended to behave. I'm mostly waving my arms in a "this is the general direction (Arthurian Fables) from which your Paladinic Ideals come from" sort of way. My Paladins hew closer to history, ie ordained by King or Emperor to carry his out his "divine will".

2e specifically call out "The Twelve Peers of Charlemagne", Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain, and Sir Galahad as 'inspiration' for the class. Yes, Sir "Not Good Enough For The Grail" Gawain and Sir "Willfully Violated The Code Of Conduct" Lancelot are our inspirations.

3) Are you assuming that doing something in ignorance, like having sex with a half-sister you didn't know was your half-sister, is the same as doing it intentionally? I doubt either Arthur or Morgause would have jumped in the sack with each other had they known.

Do you make your PC's Paladins fall if they grossly violate their code of conduct in ignorance?
(Note, worded for 3e specifically)

And, Halivar's right. There is nothing stopping a paladin from raping and murdering... except for the fact that it would be out of the PC's crafted character.. If it were in his character, I doubt a player would make him a LG paladin, unless he wants his inevitable fall to be part of the story they play out in the campaign.

Just sayin, it can happen. Happen to NPCs too. Probably should happen more often to NPCs IMO, but that's just a style choice.

And back to Halivar's Game World...

So what's stopping a clever Cleric from pretending to be one of these "pure and noble" Paladins, you know for the long con? Unless Paladin abilities have different special effects, it's bound to happen.

And once it happens a few times, word gets around. Then your [-]Jedi[/-] Paladins aren't quite so trusted anymore...

Savage Wombat · Jul 15, 2014

Does anyone remember a book from the 80's or earlier, in which the main character travelled around with a Knight, and the dynamic was that the hero (a transplanted modern guy) would say something reasonable, and everyone would look dubious - and then the Knight would repeat the statement, and everyone would say "Oh, of course!" And then the hero would say "But I just said that" and someone would say "But thou are not a Knight!"

I think it may have been Christopher Stasheff, but I don't recall for sure.

Halivar · Jul 15, 2014

evileeyore said:
And back to Halivar's Game World...

So what's stopping a clever Cleric from pretending to be one of these "pure and noble" Paladins, you know for the long con? Unless Paladin abilities have different special effects, it's bound to happen.

And once it happens a few times, word gets around. Then your [-]Jedi[/-] Paladins aren't quite so trusted anymore...

I based an entire campaign around this idea once. The "paladin prince" of the kingdom was both the party's patron and secretly the BBEG. He never once exhibited or provided any proof that he was a paladin. He just said the right things. At any point in the campaign, a level 1 cleric spell would have undone him.

Note that paladins doesn't have to be "pure and noble" for this con to work; it just twists the knife on the players a little.

evileeyore said:
Unless Paladin abilities have different special effects, it's bound to happen.

I do play up divine abilities. They're supposed to be miraculous.

Imaro · Jul 15, 2014

pkt77242 said:
Or they are putting a wonderful base class in that you can customize any way you want just as you can customize Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rangers, etc. They are providing the template and you can add whatever you want to it.

And that would be great if the tools were there for it... but in neutering alignment in 4e they also removed mechanical impact and thus it's not so much customizing a class as creating one whole cloth along with it's mechanical intersection with alignment. As opposed to (When the LG paladin was present) ... "Hey instead of protection from evil you get protection from good/law/chaos"... You now have to create exactly what protection from evil means, it's mechanical effects and so on... that's not customizing a class that's creating a different one.

pkt77242 said:
I think it is funny that people are bitching about Tieflings because they were to specific with the fluff and made them look and feel a certain way that wouldn't let them play the tiefling they wanted but here people are pissed off because WoTC made a more general feel and allows people to customize as they want. Truly shows that you can't please everyone.

Or maybe everyone in one group... isn't necessarily in the other...

Halivar · Jul 15, 2014

FWIW, Arthurian knights are not my epitome of LG.

Optimus Prime is. B-)

Savage Wombat · Jul 15, 2014

Halivar said:
FWIW, Arthurian knights are not my epitome of LG.

Optimus Prime is.

Does that mean you have or have not seen the 4th movie?

Halivar · Jul 15, 2014

Savage Wombat said:
Does that mean you have or have not seen the 4th movie?

I speak of the Optimus Prime of my youth, with Stan Bush's "The Touch" blaring in the background.

pkt77242 · Jul 15, 2014

Imaro said:
And that would be great if the tools were there for it... but in neutering alignment in 4e they also removed mechanical impact and thus it's not so much customizing a class as creating one whole cloth along with it's mechanical intersection with alignment. As opposed to (When the LG paladin was present) ... "Hey instead of protection from evil you get protection from good/law/chaos"... You now have to create exactly what protection from evil means, it's mechanical effects and so on... that's not customizing a class that's creating a different one.

Or maybe everyone in one group... isn't necessarily in the other...

B: So you are really upset about how alignment has changed which makes playing your Paladin difficult?

I: You misunderstood the point, if WoTC tries to make it more general it will piss of some people and if they make something too specific that is hard to customize they piss off others, not that the two groups are the exact same people.