One point to make here is that Paladins now have their own spell list, of which many of those spells ARE NOT ones Clerics have too.
So no... Paladins are no longer "Fighter/Clerics" by some people's definitions. Paladins are Paladins. WotC's just finally gotten around to making its spell list reflect that, probably in an effort just to finally get the "Fighter/Cleric" people to realize that that is NOT what Paladins are or going to be.
And on another note in regards to how some folks think "hybrid" classes should belong to two class groups... I don't agree. Because that does two things:
1) It waters down that "hybrid" class in power because of the attempt to make it relatively equal across both class groups. This was always the problem with the older edition bard-- not a strong enough weapon combatant, not a strong enough healer, not a strong enough trickster type. So it was a middling class all the way around because they were afraid of giving the bard TRUE power to be relatively on par with other classes *and* to then also give the class additional roles and abilities. The "support class" syndrome.
The Fighter, the Barbarian, the Paladin, (and now possibly the Monk)... they all need to be focused on martial weapon/combat. Sure, you can give them extra other abilities to help facilitate that-- combat styles, smites, rages, flurries of blows... but they still need to be built to more or less be equivalent to each other (if not out and out replacements for each other.) Because as soon as you make one of these (or another class) a "half-warrior"... it's now the bard. Just too weak to be nothing more than a support class, and thus not worth the paper its printed on.
2) If you really want characters to straddle two class groups, we already have that. It's called "multiclassing". THAT'S how you can create characters that grab parts of different class groups. So why would we want to jam the "hybrid" classes into the exact same hole that "multiclassing" is meant to fill? Let multiclassing create the half-warrior/half-trickster character, rather than try and force the ranger to do it. Let the Ranger be on par with the Rogue so that it can be a competent replacement in a group that doesn't have a Rogue. Don't hamstring the Ranger by making it a weak-ass Fighter and a weak-ass Rogue. Because that serves nobody.
So no... Paladins are no longer "Fighter/Clerics" by some people's definitions. Paladins are Paladins. WotC's just finally gotten around to making its spell list reflect that, probably in an effort just to finally get the "Fighter/Cleric" people to realize that that is NOT what Paladins are or going to be.
And on another note in regards to how some folks think "hybrid" classes should belong to two class groups... I don't agree. Because that does two things:
1) It waters down that "hybrid" class in power because of the attempt to make it relatively equal across both class groups. This was always the problem with the older edition bard-- not a strong enough weapon combatant, not a strong enough healer, not a strong enough trickster type. So it was a middling class all the way around because they were afraid of giving the bard TRUE power to be relatively on par with other classes *and* to then also give the class additional roles and abilities. The "support class" syndrome.
The Fighter, the Barbarian, the Paladin, (and now possibly the Monk)... they all need to be focused on martial weapon/combat. Sure, you can give them extra other abilities to help facilitate that-- combat styles, smites, rages, flurries of blows... but they still need to be built to more or less be equivalent to each other (if not out and out replacements for each other.) Because as soon as you make one of these (or another class) a "half-warrior"... it's now the bard. Just too weak to be nothing more than a support class, and thus not worth the paper its printed on.
2) If you really want characters to straddle two class groups, we already have that. It's called "multiclassing". THAT'S how you can create characters that grab parts of different class groups. So why would we want to jam the "hybrid" classes into the exact same hole that "multiclassing" is meant to fill? Let multiclassing create the half-warrior/half-trickster character, rather than try and force the ranger to do it. Let the Ranger be on par with the Rogue so that it can be a competent replacement in a group that doesn't have a Rogue. Don't hamstring the Ranger by making it a weak-ass Fighter and a weak-ass Rogue. Because that serves nobody.
