D&D 5E Should the Paladin be changed into a more generic half-caster magic knight?

[Shardstone]

With 5E, the Paladin's fluff changed to be less reliant on a deity and more reliant on an oath. Conviction in said oath unlocks all kinds of supernatural powers for the Paladin; essentially, their Charisma -- their Force of Will -- enables them to create miracles, smite enemies of their oath, heal the sick, and so on.

But what if the Paladin embraced this generic oath idea more? An oath doesn't have to be divine magic, and the Paladins IRL aren't that far apart from the Knights of the Round. In this way, perhaps "Lay on Hands" could be turned into one of a few potential options the Paladin picks, and their choice of subclass has a greater impact on their spell list. A Paladin in service of a lich would essentially be a Death Knight, and have more necromancy spells; a Paladin in service to an Archmage is your more generic spellblade. The best part is that by giving Smite a customizable damage type, you could easily flex the Paladin's flavor any number of ways. And of course you can still have a Paladin who serves gods or whatever.

Anyway, this is just a little idea, not one I'm sure I'll pursue as I enjoy my own Pendragon class, but the Paladin-as-Magic Knight could potentially better address the many varied tastes D&D players are meant to have.

 

[roger semerad]

I've been thinking the exact same thing. I don't have anything more specific to add about implementation, so I'll just be here for moral support.

 

[CreamCloud0]

No, the paladin is great as it is, just add the magic knight class independently.

 

[Remathilis]

Paladin is one of those classes that gets more boring the more generic it gets. I think the current paladin is almost the right amount of flavor and generic.

 

[Shardstone]

Hmmm this sounds like a challenge to design an engaging generic Paladin then.

Paladin is one of those classes that gets more boring the more generic it gets. I think the current paladin is almost the right amount of flavor and generic.

 

[Tonguez]

No terrible idea

 

[MGibster]

Is D&D supposed to be super generic or is it supposed to have an identity of some sort? There are aspects of old school Paladins I miss but I can live with the 5th edition version. I much prefer sticking with the Paladin as a divine warrior of sorts.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I would rather have a Paladin be the Paladiniest Paladin to ever Paladin and then a separate class for Death Knight; but since WOTC designers and a big chunk of the playerbase seems allergic to new classes, I am definitely open to seeing how this idea is developed.

 

[Shardstone]

I would rather have a Paladin be the Paladiniest Paladin to ever Paladin and then a separate class for Death Knight; but since WOTC designers and a big chunk of the playerbase seems allergic to new classes, I am definitely open to seeing how this idea is developed.

That's essentially my thought process to a T. I've made my own class that I offer at my tables that's the int gish, but I do wonder about the idea of a hyper customizable Paladin class that can flex into any kind of half-caster.

I'm particularly inspired by the work of Mike Mearls on his patreon. His Psyker class -- his version of a psion -- doesn't have subclasses. Instead, it has "menus of features" at certain levels that let you customize the class heavily. I think this direction might be better for my vision of this theorized ur-Magic Knight. I'm going to start simple with it -- just Paladin + Spellblade for now, but turning the subclasses of the Paladin into Menu options + adding some new ones for more Arcane flare may get me somewhere interesting. We'll see.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No, the paladin is great as it is, just add the magic knight class independently.

To be honest, Paladin is as far as we're allowed to go with a gish mechanically, so in this one case there's genuinely no real point to another class.