D&D 5E Roasting the Paladin

[Imaculata]

I've played a paladin as a dangerous fanatic who had no mercy for any evil. It was a lot of fun. Even better was the party members being unable to refute my paladins arguments for wanting to slay all evil without mercy.

 

[nevin]

I love Paladins. But nobody agrees on what the rules for the class are. Make sure you and the DM create an oath and code of conduct so that it's all clear and in black and white before the game starts.

 

[nevin]

I've played a paladin as a dangerous fanatic who had no mercy for any evil. It was a lot of fun. Even better was the party members being unable to refute my paladins arguments for wanting to slay all evil without mercy.

I played a CG Ranger that way once. Fanatics can be fun. It's really really hard to argue with someone who views everything in black and white.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The Paladin aspires to be "a paragon of virtue, justice, and truth." This is what makes them great: both great heroes and great pains in the keister.

I realized a long time ago what one of the fundamental problems with the Paladin, as a class, is. Believe it or not, it isn't the fact that they have to be Lawful Good, and thus invite alignment-bait arguments. (That still isn't great, mind, but it's not the real reason.) There's a key component that kept being left totally implicit at least up through 3e. (I can't recall if 4e addressed it directly in the PHB; 5e didn't.) A component that, because it wasn't understood, directly led to all the problems of Moral Policemen, Smite-the-jaywalkers types, and nearly all the "I'm a Paladin so you must listen to me or you're EVIL" stuff.

The writeup never tells you that respect must be earned.

And that shapes everything else. When you think you simply deserve respect because you Already Are A Paladin, you treat your judgments as sacrosanct. If you were some lesser class, perhaps you might be questionable--but you are a PALADIN, you are by definition righteous! When you think you're entitled to respect from your party members, a lack of respect is an insult and an outright refutation of respect is a threat. When the game tells you, "you are a champion of all that is good," and you think you already have the moral high ground as a result, you aren't just giving advice or helping with decisions, you're preaching the Pure Truth and making the Only Right Choice.

All those stuffy, pig-headed, idiotic, frustrating, dogmatic, irrational, sanctimonious gluteal chapeaus are rooted in that fundamental error. When a Paladin instead approaches each and every person as a new opportunity to earn the respect of others, rather than a new opportunity to capitalize on that respect, the entire situation changes.

A big part of what led me to this revelation was the actually quite decent Paladins with Class article from WotC. Some of the build advice is shaky, but the roleplay advice is solid. These lines in particular stood out to me, with the bold part especially impactful:

Great paladins are more concerned with justice and charity than with meting out punishments and preaching about other people's moral failings. [...] One appropriate way to achieve that effect is to be consistently honest and unselfish, and to place the welfare and safety of others before your own.
[...] some of the party scout's actions are likely to earn your disapproval. When they do, don't nag or become self-righteous. Instead, register your dissatisfaction without rancor and keep an eye on the scout in the future. If you've done a good job of making your paladin admirable, your quiet displeasure should prove most compelling.

I've gotten the chance to play that paladin before. The one who inspires his hard-hearted CN fighter friend to try to make the world a better place--because my paladin showed that that is what true strength is. The one who earns the mutual trust and respect of his grabby-hands thief friend, such that he's comfortable with her doing some rules-bending because he trusts her judgment, and she in turn knows that if he DOES raise a concern, she needs to take it seriously. The one whose passing leaves the world a better, brighter, nobler place than it had been before.

And that stuff is gorram addictive, I swear, once you get some of that sweet Paladin juice you never want to stop. Because it feels good to be good, it feels good to know others trust you implicitly, that your word carries weight.

As with a great many things, the Paladin goes wrong when it presumes what it needed to prove.

 

[Eltab]

Inverting the trope:
I played an Ancients Paladin (mechanically) but he was dedicated to upholding the Fundamental Laws of Civilization.

 

[FireLance]

Paladins are the best class! If you haven't played a Lumin Aasimar elite class Inspired Paladin with the Watcher Agent background, a couatl familiar mount, the Vessel of Life, Vessel of Light, and Sacred Flame Adept feats, and the full Eight Treasures item suite comprising Vigilance, the Pearl Plate, the Ruby Gauntlets, the Sapphire Helm, the Amber Bracers, the Emerald Epaulettes, the Topaz Greaves, and the Amethyst Gorget, you don't know what you're missing.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"you don't know what you're missing."

Based on the wardrobe, the winning contestant on "Drag Race"?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Paladins are the best class! If you haven't played a Lumin Aasimar elite class Inspired Paladin with the Watcher Agent background, a couatl familiar mount, the Vessel of Life, Vessel of Light, and Sacred Flame Adept feats, and the full Eight Treasures item suite comprising Vigilance, the Pearl Plate, the Ruby Gauntlets, the Sapphire Helm, the Amber Bracers, the Emerald Epaulettes, the Topaz Greaves, and the Amethyst Gorget, you don't know what you're missing.

I have no idea what any of that is (except Aasimar, but have no idea what a Lumin Aasimar is).

 

[FireLance]

I have no idea what any of that is (except Aasimar, but have no idea what a Lumin Aasimar is).

Somewhere between homebrew and stuff I might put on DMsGuild: new aasimar subrace and racial feats, elite class (think paladin/battlemaster fighter gestalt), the couatl familiar mount and magic items feature in a paladin solo adventure I'm working on.

 

[Davies]

Michael Carpenter.