Paladins: Lawful Good only and other restrictions

[Endur]

In AD&D, Paladins were a restricted class. Paladins had to be lawful good, had to have chr 17+, and had a number of other restrictions (tithing, other rules related to lawful good).

In exchange for all of these restrictions, the Paladin was a fighter+. The paladin had nearly all of the abilities of the fighter and had other holy abilities.

Some campaigns made it even harder to become a paladin, treating the paladin almost like a prestige class, requireing extensive evidence of lawful good deeds before becoming a paladin.

Some campaigns soon added the Anti-Paladin (Dragon magazine, etc.); and later there was the blackguard and paladins of various alignments.

2e added weapon specialization to the fighter to give the fighter something that paladins did not have. 3e gave the fighter lots of feats to balance the fighter versus the paladin.

Should D&D 5e paladins be open to multiple alignments, or should they follow the ideal of chivalry?

Should D&D paladins be assigned to a specific god (similar to priests), or do they receive their powers from a heroic ideal of chivalry and valor?

 

[Yora]

The paladin should be merged with the cleric, as it is pretty much a cleric with less spells. Especially when you introduce a casting-heavy priest class, the paladin becomes completely redundant.

 

[steeldragons]

Personally, I like paladins having to be Lawful Good. But am open to the idea of "any Lawful" to allow for LE and LN sorts.

I also insist that paladins in my games are religious orders, tied to a temple and god. Thus, naturally, only LG, LN and LE deities are able to have paladins at all.

Since, from what we are hearing, the use of Alignment at all in 5e is going to be a matter of options. 1) Whether to have ALignment or not in the first place and 2)If you do want alignment in your game, then are you going to use the traditional AD&D 9-pt., the 4e 5-pt or the OD&D 3-pt.

So I don't hold out a lot of hope for alignment restrictions on paladins...or any other class for that matter.

My take has always been that while Paladins are gifted with divine "powers" they are still a sub-class of the Fighter and do not in my games receive spellcasting abilities. So, for all of the paladin/cleric/priest jabber of later, in my ideal 5e version:

The Paladin is the divine Non-caster, all fighting skill with no spells but granted/gifted powers.

The Cleric is, well, the cleric. The "middle man", fighting skill and spell casting and some "gifted powers" (like Turn Undead or Specialty priest stuff).

The Priest would be the divine-caster, no fighting skill, all spells, all the time and granted/gifted powers (i.e. Priests should be able to Turn Undead too, possibly more effectively than Clerics and similar command/defense against demons and such like the original paladin, and receive more/better/bigger specialty priest powers).

But as to the original post: No, I don't think we will see a set restriction like LG or high Cha (I don't think, in fact there will be any ability minimums for any class or even options thereof anywhere in 5e). But there will be, I expect, the optional module with Alignment. That if you are going to use Alignment in your games, the DM should feel free to apply such restrictions...but again, not necessarily/optionally.

EDIT PS: I DO think the paldin should be required to adhere to chivalric ideals, or at least general ideals like "honor" and/or "valor", no matter what their alignment, if any. It's kinda part and parcel of the flavor of the paladin. Otherwise their just a fighter with divine powers or a cleric with a sword. But again, I think the incorporating of such ideals/codes/flavor won't be built in to the class, but presented as a module for optional use.
/END EDIT PS
--SD

 

[pauljathome]

Should D&D paladins be assigned to a specific god (similar to priests), or do they receive their powers from a heroic ideal of chivalry and valor?

I think that the core Paladin should be assigned to a particular orders of particular Gods. All should be LG but some may be close to NG and some close to LN (ie, probably worship LN or NG Gods).

But I think that there is then a lot of design space for other Holy warriors of other dieties. One of my favourite books for 3.x was Righteous Might (a book detailing an entire mythology, including holy warriors). It should NOT be core (too much information is required) but it surely should exist.

I'm fairly indifferent if Paladin et. al. are (to use the Pathfinder terms) base classes, archetypes or prestige classes.

 

[Lord Zack]

I think the paladin, as it is in 4e, should be subsumed by the cleric. In it's place should be a version of the paladin more true to the class' roots. That being the ultimate ideal of knighthood and chivalry rather than a martially inclined servant of a deity. This class should indeed be restricted to lawful good.

 

[Janaxstrus]

I think the Paladin and Cleric should merge, and all gods should have access to them. Heavy armor, good fighting, decent healing, small small selection of attack or mass buff spells. No Righteous Might/Divine power type spells

The priest should then be the "cleric", except no armor/light armor and more like the specialty priests of old. Good healing, buffs, fighting bonuses with spells to let them go toe to toe with things in a pinch, but short duration so as not to overshadow the true fighters.

 

[jonesy]

In BECMI, which is what I started with, the cleric was translated as Temppeliritari, i.e. Temple Knight. The imagery for the class, the abilities, the whole shebang were the very image of a holy warrior for me.

So the Paladin was always an odd class for me. Less than a cleric in everything but pure fighting skills.

I could totally get behind the idea of making the Paladin just a fighting version of the cleric. Or to go back to the very roots of the class, a divine version of fighting man.

 

[Greg K]

I think the Paladin and Cleric should merge, and all gods should have access to them. Heavy armor, good fighting, decent healing, small small selection of attack or mass buff spells. No Righteous Might/Divine power type spells

I disagree that all gods should have access to them. They should only be appropriate if they fit a deity's domains/spheres of influence. I don't see Heavy armor, good fighting, healing, or even buffs being appropriate to all deities.

 

[Sunseeker]

Paladin's should be restricted to the alignment of their deity. Being Lawful Good when your deity is chaotic good doesn't make much sense.

Also: Paladins and Clerics should not merge. Cleriss should lose their more heavily-armored end and pick up a more light-armored caster end and Paladin's should get to be the go-to class for heavy-armored divine fighters.

 

[Blackwarder]

Personally, I like the 2e paladin rather than 3e or 4e.

No other edition have managed to make me feel like my character is the equivelant of Storm from DragonLance.

Warder