D&D 5E Paladins in SCAG are all good-aligned?

[Delazar]

Page 131. "Different paladin orders in the Forgotten Realms emphasize different elements of righteous behavior, but all paladins are expected to hold true to a common set of virtues:
Liberality. Be generous and tolerant.
Good faith. Be honest and keep promises.
etc."

Am I reading this correctly? It looks like paladins are supposed to be "good" and "honest". I thought we were done with only Lawful Good paladins? It does mention later on that some Orders value one specific virtue more than other, but I thought "virtue" was not even a requirement to be a paladin in 5E.

What am I missing?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Page 131. "Different paladin orders in the Forgotten Realms emphasize different elements of righteous behavior, but all paladins are expected to hold true to a common set of virtues:
Liberality. Be generous and tolerant.
Good faith. Be honest and keep promises.
etc."

Am I reading this correctly? It looks like paladins are supposed to be "good" and "honest". I thought we were done with only Lawful Good paladins? It does mention later on that some Orders value one specific virtue more than other, but I thought "virtue" was not even a requirement to be a paladin in 5E.

What am I missing?

I got the same impression you did. Decided that the "paladin" they were talking about was the title of members of certain chivalric holy orders only, and didn't refer to the class paladin (although class paladins could be members of the orders of paladins). Which reminds me I need to start a poll on if class names have actual meaning in people's games (instead of being metagame concepts).

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

Check out the section on adapting material for other settings - the Dragonlance section, at least, suggests Oath of the Crown for Knights of Takhisis, so it more a FR flavor thing, than anything else - same as the Bladesinger subclass Elf restriction. I suppose it's up to AL on whether it's standard for organized play, but as published, there's wiggle room.

 

[Kobold Stew]

What am I missing?

I think you are confusing the rules of the game (which are done with LG-only paladins), and the flavour of one particular setting (which here seems to say that paladins in this world share certain virtues).

 

[Charles Rampant]

With no 'detect values' spell available, and the deceive skill available, how would anyone ever tell if a Paladin didn't live up to these? That is the critical different between the old restrictions (the universe wouldn't allow a NG or LN or whatever person to become a Paladin) and the new ones (which basically say that Paladin organisations try to indoctrinate these values in their members).

 

[delericho]

That is the critical different between the old restrictions (the universe wouldn't allow a NG or LN or whatever person to become a Paladin) and the new ones (which basically say that Paladin organisations try to indoctrinate these values in their members).

Yep, this. Plus what Ovi said about 'paladin' perhaps being both the class and also the name of specific organisations within the setting - two categories that overlap but aren't identical.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Does the PHB provide any guidance on evil paladins? I know the alignment restriction is gone, but I still got the impression that paladins are holy knights.

It'd be weird for an evil paladin to do radiant damage with his smite.

 

[discosoc]

They never should have moved away from the alignment restriction in the first place. It's what made the paladin special. Now it's just another group of stats with no soul.

 

[hawkeyefan]

They never should have moved away from the alignment restriction in the first place. It's what made the paladin special. Now it's just another group of stats with no soul.

I kind of get what you're saying....but the stats/rules are what they are, cans have been for every edition. The player is what gives a character its soul.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

They never should have moved away from the alignment restriction in the first place. It's what made the paladin special. Now it's just another group of stats with no soul.

The alignment restriction was partially in place to balance the original paladin's powerful special abilities, when compared to every other class - and we've all seen that trying to balance a set of abilities with RP restrictions is a near-impossible task, because it relies heavily on each game's adjudicator and set of players.

No one is preventing you from restricting paladin alignment in your home campaign - but such a blanket RP restriction in a published set of rules is more likely to turn off a large subset of players than to attract them. If you (and your group of players) want to restrict paladins to LG, have at it - but I'm not about to call bad/wrong fun on my players or anyone else's for playing things antithetical to my tastes.

5e, from the start, has been intended as the all-inclusive edition. Each group is encouraged to cater to their own tastes - it's far easier to disallow something than to force something into a system that hasn't been tested for it.