(still catching up on the rest of the thread...)
I suppose the Lawful priest strictly abides by a rigid code of conduct AND does so faithfully as a matter of principle, whereas the Chaotic priest has looser scriptures, may chafe under any code of conduct, but does so relunctantly. The lawful one finds purpose in following the code, the chaotic one just hopes the end justifies the means.
This would be overly simplistic in the real world, but D&D isn't real, it only has to be true in the D&D world (mostly if you accept the D&D Alignment system as overt cosmological/moral principles).
That said, it still grates me (a lot) with the frequent corner cases, like the 4E archon, which is supposedly Chaotic Evil, yet has a very rigid hierarchical soldier behavior IIRC. I always thought D&D cosmology would feel less forced and contrived and more organic if they didn't try to cram everything into the alignment box.
Of course, you could call me hypocritical regardling labelling the paladin with an alignment restriction, but I'm just brainstorming, and I don't have strong views on the paladin one way or another, so don't expect me to be consistent!
I'm only struggling to understand the soul of the paladin, and historically, the paladin was defined within context of the alignment system. It's most important to me that any class has a compelling distinct core identity; otherwise, it should be decoupled into a class theme (as per the Paladin thread).
Firstly, I don't really understand (or just forgot) what a Chaotic god is (vs an Unaligned god, which is what I think they should be). I think I got confused when CE primordials want to rearrange the world, the CE demons want to destroy the world, some CE entities want to annihilate existence itself (whatever that means) and so the Chaotic niche seems oversaturated and not sure what a chaotic god is.Say you have a cleric of a chaotic deity. This cleric must follow the deity's instructions and ethics or risk losing their powers. Do you label this cleric as Lawful for following the rules or Chaotic for the actions they take?
I suppose the Lawful priest strictly abides by a rigid code of conduct AND does so faithfully as a matter of principle, whereas the Chaotic priest has looser scriptures, may chafe under any code of conduct, but does so relunctantly. The lawful one finds purpose in following the code, the chaotic one just hopes the end justifies the means.
This would be overly simplistic in the real world, but D&D isn't real, it only has to be true in the D&D world (mostly if you accept the D&D Alignment system as overt cosmological/moral principles).
That said, it still grates me (a lot) with the frequent corner cases, like the 4E archon, which is supposedly Chaotic Evil, yet has a very rigid hierarchical soldier behavior IIRC. I always thought D&D cosmology would feel less forced and contrived and more organic if they didn't try to cram everything into the alignment box.
Of course, you could call me hypocritical regardling labelling the paladin with an alignment restriction, but I'm just brainstorming, and I don't have strong views on the paladin one way or another, so don't expect me to be consistent!
I'm only struggling to understand the soul of the paladin, and historically, the paladin was defined within context of the alignment system. It's most important to me that any class has a compelling distinct core identity; otherwise, it should be decoupled into a class theme (as per the Paladin thread).