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

[DDNFan]

A paladin is all about following a code, so Lawful anything is good but once you get away from lawful it is just about giving the feats and abilities to every tom, dick and sally. I can see it as a story/campaign elements but does that would not make it a class but a title.

Tom, Sick and Sally is a very polite way to describe the variety of actions that I've witnessed paladin players commit over the years.

Human kind simply doesn't seem to respond to only having carrots. You really need a stick sometimes. It's part of our animal heritage. That stick is, of course, losing your abilities if you're a paladin. Otherwise show me how a D&D god could punish a D&D paladin in an effective way, that remains plausible given that the simplest and most direct way for a god to control his champion is to take away that champion's status as a champion.

Without that ability, D&D gods are neutered, and impotent. Putting paladins in the game at all requires an effective alignment system if it's really to make any sense. Unless gods in your pantheon are so starved for combat-worthy champions that they are willing to put up with anything so long as they pretend to be doing their bidding. Key word, pretend. But nobody is really being fooled.

 

[LFK]

Just putting it out there, but why does your criteria only apply to Paladins?

It's not like Paladin abilities are crazy powerful compared to Wizards and Clerics, so why are they the only ones walking a tightrope?

 

[Falling Icicle]

Tom, Sick and Sally is a very polite way to describe the variety of actions that I've witnessed paladin players commit over the years.

Human kind simply doesn't seem to respond to only having carrots. You really need a stick sometimes. It's part of our animal heritage. That stick is, of course, losing your abilities if you're a paladin. Otherwise show me how a D&D god could punish a D&D paladin in an effective way, that remains plausible given that the simplest and most direct way for a god to control his champion is to take away that champion's status as a champion.

Without that ability, D&D gods are neutered, and impotent. Putting paladins in the game at all requires an effective alignment system if it's really to make any sense. Unless gods in your pantheon are so starved for combat-worthy champions that they are willing to put up with anything so long as they pretend to be doing their bidding. Key word, pretend. But nobody is really being fooled.

There are plenty of other consequences that a paladin, cleric, etc. can face for turning against their beliefs. The biggest and most obvious one is that they can end up being shunned, or worse, hunted, by other members of their former faith. That makes for far more interesting stories than "you were naughty, now your god zaps away all of your powers!" And paladins that commit atrocities can face a ton of other consequences. People that murder or do other horrific acts usually end up wanted criminals in most societies, and can easily end up being the target for crusading heroes that band together to put an end to the character's reign of terror. Some people seem to think that there are no roleplaying repercussions for bad behavior in games without strict enforcement of alignments. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I've played in many very interesting games where there were moral dilemmas, and that was in game systems other than D&D that have nothing like alignment. Instead of just telling a player "no, you can't do that, it goes against your alignment", why not try actually making consequences for their actions in the game? You know, roleplay it.

As for gods taking away paladin powers (or clerics, for that matter), that means that the gods literally watch everything the PCs ever do, and are ready to intervene at a moment's notice should they disobey. While that's something that some people might like in their campaigns, it's not something that everyone wants. Many people prefer for the gods to be distant beings that rarely, if ever intervene directly in mortal affairs. I also dislike the big brother deities because it means you can never have corrupt clerics or paladins within a faith. It would be obvious to everyone because they'd have no divine powers. Corrupt or fanatical people often twist religions into terrible things, both in real life and in fiction. In a world where divine magic is real, and the gods carefully monitor their servants for bad behavior and strip them of their powers, such villains simply cannot exist. That eliminates tons of story possibilities.

 

[pemerton]

I guess my issues is that I have never looked at paladins as knights in shining armor ala King Arthur. I have always viewed them as special warriors called to a higher calling to defend, smite evil, uphold justice

Those are basically the same thing, though - "special warrior with a higher calling to defend, smite evil, uphold justice" is the self-conception of the knight in shining armour a la King Arthur.

exactly what distinguishes the concept of the cleric from the concept of the paladin?

Nothing. They are the same concept - paragons of religious and chivalric virtue.

the original paladin & cleric come from a different, quasi-Christian background of mythology and folklore--the former from Arthurian legends, the tales of Charlemagne, and Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, and the latter from the Templars and Hospitalers, a couple of fighting archbishops, and Hammer horror films

Putting the Hammer horror to one side - the actual discernible influence of those films on the classic D&D cleric seems limited to the ability to turn undead - you are correct about the background of the cleric. But that is not different from the background of the paladin. The Arthurian and Carolingian romances give voice to that era's conception of the ideal knight. And the Templars and Hospitallers were founded to be ideal knights.

St Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, wrote the following in his tract on "In Praise of the New Knighthood":

When someone strongly resists a foe in the flesh, relying solely on the strength of the flesh, I would hardly remark it, since this is common enough. And when war is waged by spiritual strength against vices or demons, this, too, is nothing remarkable, praiseworthy as it is, for the world is full of monks. But when the one sees a man powerfully girding himself with both swords and nobly marking his belt, who would not consider it worthy of all wonder, the more so since it has been hitherto unknown? He is truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith just as his body is protected by armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men.​

The idea of being "doubly armed" - ie with both sword/flesh and faith/spirit - is presented here by St Bernard as a characteristic of the members of the military orders (the inspiration for D&D clerics) but is utterly apposite for a paladin also.

In other words, they aren't different archetypes. They're just different game-mechanical realisations of the same archetype. We can see a comparable mulit-mechanical-realisation of a single archetype in the case of the sorcerer, the wizard, the warlock, the bard (in at least many versions), and (arguably, in at least some versions) the druid.

The thing that sort of throws me about the LG-only Paladin is that they don't really fit into most any of the D&D worlds.

<snip>

The gods of D&D are broadly all on the same power level, and there's tons of them, each incrementally different from the next. Evil in D&D is a defensible ideological tenet with its own gods and saints and champions and patrons just as much as Good.

I agree with this. That's why I've been saying for a long time on these boards that paladins don't fit into a traditional D&D alignment system, which is - as you explain - basically relativist/nihilistic. Whereas the paladin only makes sense on the basis if s/he is convinced that the world unfolds according to divine providence.

A Chaotic X Paladin can never exist. If you're Chaotic then you don't like being restricted by laws, but if you're a paladin you've dedicated yourself to following your gods laws, so you can't be Chaotic.

Are clerics not also dedicated to their gods' laws?

I share this confusion.

 

[delericho]

Is Anyone Unhappy About Non-LG Paladins?

Yes. IMO, alignment should be consigned to an optional module (with mechanical effects), and the Paladin should likewise be placed in that optional module.

However, I've pretty much come to terms with the reality (since 4e) that Paladins were going to be non-LG-only. So it's a tiny, tiny strike against 5e. If that's the only thing about the game that makes me unhappy, I'll be very happy indeed.

 

[pemerton]

The restrictions and abilities kind of made Paladins special. Now they are just another watered down concept to try and appeal to the pubbie masses.

I don't know if I'm on of those masses, but I have enjoyed playing and GMing paladins for over 20 years, and have never seen the mechanical restrictions as very important to them. A good paladin player brings his/her own sense of what is permitted and what is not to the table, and plays according to that.

I've seen several selfish murder hobo paladins in Encounters. Having no rule to support your vows is akin to giving players free reign to demand that for RAW-aligned DMs, there is no such thing as good and evil, lawful or chaotic, because even if there were, there is no mechanical repercussion for a paladin acting CE despite having LG on his sheet. There isn't even a way for a DM to alter alignment based on their character's actions. That is totally absurd and ridiculous.

<snip>

I submit to you that it's not only unreasonable to have a class based on Oaths without consequences for violating them, but it's completely unreasonable to have any form of alignment mentioned anywhere in the PHB if there is no mechanical support.

<snip>

Paladin players are the trolls of D&D. They want those kewl abilities but no penalties for hitting below the belt. They want to swagger in to town as the hero on shining armor after having acquired their celestial mount as a result of murdering a bunch of defenseless captives who had surrendered. This is the kind of game they've created here.

<snip>

The only thing I find really surprising is that on a website dedicated to roleplaying, that the idea that good roleplaying would be rewarded in the rules and bad roleplaying penalized, is the least bit controversial.

It sounds like you need to find a new group.

Also, why are players playing paladins if they don't want to play chivalric knights? It's not as if paladins have been particularly mechanically powerful in any version of the game since AD&D.

You might also want to look at the incentive structures in your games. If players have no incentive to play their PCs seriously, and do have an incentive to play their PCs as "murder hobos", maybe you (and/or the GM) aren't framing the game in a way that encourages players to play to the PC types that they have chosen. (For instance, why did the character have to slay defenceless captives to win a celestial mount? Why was it not given as a gift by the grace of the heavens?)

 

[pemerton]

IMO, alignment should be consigned to an optional module (with mechanical effects), and the Paladin should likewise be placed in that optional module.

I don't understand. A lot of people who don't like alignment mechanics like the paladin class. For those people, the alignment aspects of the class aren't central to it but an irritating traditional feature that needs to be ignored. Why should the class be bundled into a corner where that feature is made integral to it?

 

[delericho]

I don't understand. A lot of people who don't like alignment mechanics like the paladin class. For those people, the alignment aspects of the class aren't central to it but an irritating traditional feature that needs to be ignored. Why should the class be bundled into a corner where that feature is made integral to it?

Because for me the alignment aspect is central to the class. Therefore in my opinion that's what should have been done.

Obviously, I've been outvoted, and fair enough. But although I have to accept that outcome, I don't have to like it.

 

[Hussar]

I've seen several selfish murder hobo paladins in Encounters.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ppy-About-Non-LG-Paladins/page8#ixzz34nyDxP2z

I'm not really sure I'd buy D&D Encounters as a good place to look for high quality role play. I could be wrong. But, as a gut feeling, Encounters isn't where I'd expect a whole lot of great RP.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Because for me the alignment aspect is central to the class. Therefore in my opinion that's what should have been done.

Obviously, I've been outvoted, and fair enough. But although I have to accept that outcome, I don't have to like it.

I'm not sure you have: though the wording of the play test materials could be clearer, the individual oaths are framed in terms of strict alignment choices: Devotion LG; Vengeance N or LN.

Now I admit the wording could be stronger, but there are alignment restrictions implied for the class already. They haven't spelled out the consequences of alignment change, which also affects monks ("most" are lawful) or clerics (one step of the divinity's alignment, though that falls apart if you worship a whole pantheon), but it is there.

As [MENTION=61050]LFK[/MENTION] notes, this is not a paladin-only argument, until

A Lawful paladin looks at things from the perspective of "I'm not allowed to do X; it's my duty to do X, etc."

a LG paladin would have little problem with imperial Rome.

not murdering defensely kobold children

someone starts telling me the way I need to play LG.

As is usual, a lot of separate issues get confused:
(1) the social contract at the gaming table, and what you are there for.
(2) the relative absence of rp solutions in favour of mechanical ones
(3) talking about any character's alignment in the context of gods who are known to exist and who operate by an alignment system
(4) the LG paladin as a "special case"

1. I'm not going to continue to game with players like the ones [MENTION=6776483]DDNFan[/MENTION] describes. That's not worth my time, and bad gaming is not better than no gaming. So let them have their fun; it is a problem I get to avoid.

2. In my situation, changing alignment is something that can be negotiated. Patterns of behaviour, experienced over the course of a session or two, reveal alignment in a way any single act does not. There should be rp in play, though I understand that can be pretty minimal in a dungeon-crawl context. All fine, though -- the rules allow a range of views.

3. Falling Icicle 's point about how much the gods care about individual believers is a good one

As for gods taking away paladin powers (or clerics, for that matter), that means that the gods literally watch everything the PCs ever do, and are ready to intervene at a moment's notice should they disobey.

There does need to be a stick for some sort of (negotiated) alignment change, but it doesn't need to be a "fall" for a single act.
* a cleric more than one step from her god maybe doesn't get spells, or needs to find a new god.
* a non-lawful monk maybe doesn't get ki points.
* a lawful barbarian maybe doesn't get rages.
* a paladin who goes beyond their oath (or violates alignment) maybe doesn't get spells, or needs to choose another oath.
If reading these makes you think the penalty's too harsh, a more moderate form in each case would be:
* the character can no longer advance in levels in that class.

Within the context of a healthy table dynamic (negotiated alignment), none of these are especially punitive, I feel. If they were to happen, it would be because the player has chosen that outcome.

4. So, finally, is there anything special about the LG Paladin? Within the context of 5e, it's a particular oath, and I've just suggested that moderate solutions exist on par with alignment restrictions in other classes. Frankly, I wish there *were* something special about LG paladins, but it's not there right now -- apart from the 8th-level ability to turn fiends and some spell availability, there is no real distinction between one paladin and another, or between paladins and other classes.

In the past, I've outlined my proposed fix (basically, granting the level 6 ability, Aura of Protection, only to LG/Oath of Devotion paladins, and having alternative powers for other Oaths), but I'm not holding my breath.

The current iteration does not make paladins more powerful than other classes, and does not say there's anything particularly special about the Oath of Devotion, and that's fine. It is not a case that needs special treatment.