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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 2641538" data-attributes="member: 5328">I agree that the god can legislate extra rules for its paladins. And I guess that by legislating appropriately it can give itself power to dispense its own requirements in advance. But any code that it iimposes only places a requirement on the behaviour of the paladin. Additions to a code of conduct only constrain conduct, they do not give the person follow the code the ability to do things that are beyond his power. So the god could include an item in the code "I will remain a paladin if my god says I must, even if I have broken the code", but that would not make the paladin able to do that. So although the gods might have power to  lay extra constraints on paladins, and might even order their paladins not to use their paladin powers, the obligation of the paladin to respect the legitimate authority of the god he or she worships does not create an for the god to give paladin powers to a character who does not qualify for them.The paladin has to respect his god. If he does not, and if his disrepect is 'gross', he or she loses his or her powers. But the god still can't give paladiny powers to a person who doesn't qualify for them. That means that it is the actuality of alignment, the actuality of association, the actuality of abstinence from evil, and the actuality of respect that determines a paladin's status, not the god's opinion or judgement of those things.A god (eg. Helm, in Faerûn) might find it very convenient to have lawful neutral paladins. Or to let lawful good paladins get away with just one evil act in the god's interests. But by the rules as written, no god is able to do these things.A paladin has to be lawful good, not collect a mendacious certificate from a god. If a paladin wilfully and knowingly commits an evil act, even an Atonemment will not restore his or her class.To attempt an analogy, the legislature in a modern state with separation of powers can make laws that I have to obey on pain of fines or imprisonment. But that legislative power does not give the legislature the ability to try my case. And a law that says "you must escape from prison if the speaker of the house says that what you did was okay" doesn't give me the ability to walk through walls.Similarly, a god cannot give paladiny powers to a neutral good character. If the gods had discretion to waive requierments of the paladin class in the case of their worshippers they would be able to do that. Therefore, the gods do not have that power. And that paladins' respect cannot give the god a power that teh core rules prove it does not have.</blockquote>

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