Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I'm not going down this particular rabbit hole with you. The only thing dumber than arguing about whether something with mechanical effects is a mechanic, is arguing about that argument. I'm out.
It's not a rabbit hole to try and more precisely understand what it is that's under discussion. I know you think that's a dumb thing to do, but there are some of us who find that effort worthwhile. That said, if you don't feel that you have anything to contribute in this particular area, I'm glad that you've decided to remove yourself from the discussion, since saying that you think the discussion isn't worthwhile does nothing but drag the conversation down.
pemerton said:That they are blessed by (the) god(s). That they are saints (eg St Edward; St Joan). That they are holy champions (Arthur, Galahad, Percival, Aragorn).
There are a range of ways to reflect the connection between paladins and divinity. Spell-casting is just one (and not my personal favourite). The AD&D abilities are another.
But this raises questions of whether that's something that is represented by the thematic elements of the class itself, or something that the player has to imbue their character with. I can say that my multiclass fighter-cleric is the chosen of a deity, and is considered a saint with a direct connection to their god. In that case, why have a paladin class at all?
In other words, there's a concern that the identity of the paladin class is being diluted. Now, you can manually go in and clean that up - heck, you can say "in my campaign, paladins may only be Lawful Good" - but that's an example of the Rule 0 fallacy; that the class isn't broken (in this regard) because you can fix it.
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