Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
It's not me feigning ignorance... it's you and your blog post not actually answering the question I asked... I didn't ask why you liked flexible paladins... I asked you what would define this so called flexible paladin (beyond holy warrior which is an archetype that can be accomplished easily in every edition as well as in different combinations of fight/spell without a specific paladin class)...
In other words, you're looking for a level of specificity that I neither want nor impose on my players. A base class is far too big a part of the game to confine to one specific archetype, so I define paladins as I define clerics, with the obvious addendum of "But more fighty than the cleric." In other words, yes, a holy warrior. Beyond that, a paladin player is welcome to define her paladin as she wishes.Personally, I'm comfortable with any and all of the above. In 4e, I simply treat paladins as the in-your-face military branch of their respective temples. Though I don't play PF often, I'm just finishing the write-up for the Exemplar class, a collaborative take on the paladin class that I've been working on with a few Paizo fans.
Hope that helps.
If the flexible paladin sounds like an archetype that can be arrived at via multiclassing...well, barring smite evil and a few other paladin features, yeah! Considering some of D&D's other classes, I don't see any inconsistency.Imaro said:So you want a more martial cleric? Again that's what a cleric-fighter is for... so I'm missing the point of what archetype or niche your flexible paladin with no code and no alignment restriction actually fullfills... it's not the chivalrous knight like @pemerton's (which, while I don't like it I at least understand what archetype or niche it fills)... It's not the paragon of good that the LG paladin reflects... so what is it?
Why do we need rangers when the naturey-warrior archetype can be accomplished by a multiclassed druid/fighter? Why do we need bards when the jack-of-all-trades archetype can be accomplished via wizard/rogue/cleric multiclassing, plus a musical instrument? (Or just mage/rogue, depending on edition.) Why do we need druids when the nature-priest archetype can be accomplished by a cleric with the nature-y domains? Why do we need LG-only paladins when the Galahad archetype can be done with a LG cleric/fighter multiclass? Come to think of it, why don't we all just play the three generic classes from the 3e Unearthed Arcana, and fluff to taste? No need for all of these hybrid and specialty classes, right?
Answer these questions, and you just might discover what niche the flexible paladin fills. Hint: It's as much a chargen/gameplay niche as an in-game niche.
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