Cavalier's code of conduct from Unearthed Arcana

[ForceUser]

I feel like there's veiled criticism buried in your comments, as though it bugs you that my interpretation of things differs from yours. Anyway, I'm done here--I got the information I needed, and EB's comments were insightful as always. Thanks gang!

 

[Umbran]

That's how you want your players to roleplay a paladin? Something humble like that?

No. But the flip side of the coin - cavalier pride also includes a sense of entitlement. The cavalier would acknowledge tha compliment, and then demand housing and food for the week for himself and his compatriots, and probably access to the farmer's daughter. None of which is particularly paladin like.

Cavaliers ask what you can do for them. Paladins ask what they can do for you.

 

[Endur]

Similarly, a cavalier who dons leather armor to infiltrate a thieves guild to effect a rescue will gain no experience, since the rescue would be done in means not approved of by the code.

The reason here is not that the Cavalier is wearing leather armor. Nothing wrong with leather armor per se.

The problem is that the Cavalier is using infiltration.

Cavaliers should draw their sword and great cleave their way through the Thieves Guild. None of this infiltration stuff.

 

[rowport]

Threadjack Alert!

...Then you never watched "Kung Fu"? Well, I'll fill you in. Caine was so frikkin humble, that when a jerk would insult him, Caine would apologize. The jerk could even throw food on Caine and push him around, and Caine would apologize...

Tony-

I see great fodder for Kev & Crew here... meeting up with Caine the Humble Monk (tm)!

(Either that, or add Ninjas. My only compaint about Zognonia is not enough Ninjas.)

 

[rowport]

More Threadjacking Madness!

Counseler, I submit as evidence Defense Exhibit "A", showing TonyM's opinion about Paladins:

http://zogonia.com/zogoniaarchive/zogonia031.html

He is entirely right, of course.

 

[dcollins]

Thor would not want a humble paladin...

Thor wouldn't have any paladins at all. In D&D, Thor is given an alignment of Chaotic Good, antithetical to the ethical outlook required for paladins. The rest of your post basically expands on this exact idea. (Someone else already said it, but thought I'm emphasize it.)

 

[Umbran]

The reason here is not that the Cavalier is wearing leather armor. Nothing wrong with leather armor per se.

For a cavalier, there is something wrong with leather armor. It is lowly. Remember that cavaliers are in part about station and social class. And people of high station don't go around wearing leather armor. That's for those cheap cowards who use bows and want to be able to run away...

Maybe, by current rules, a cavalier might stoop to wearing leather armor, but only if it were masterwork...

 

[Gentlegamer]

The reason here is not that the Cavalier is wearing leather armor. Nothing wrong with leather armor per se.

Leather armour is for peasants and thieves!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

But the Christian diety is like 40 times more powerful than the five most powerful D&D gods put together. So it makes sense for a paladin to be 'less humble' in a D&D universe than our real universe. In D&D-land, gods can be killed or tricked by other gods, and make blunders all the time. I wouldn't expect paladins in that world to be humble in the same way, or to the same extent, as paladins in ours.

I'm not convinced that the demands of piety and humility before a god would be less simply because the god is less. The rewards and justification would certainly be less. To humbly trust in a fallible god is not likely to end as well as humbly trusting in an infallible and all powerful God. But I don't know that the greek deities were particularly understanding if their servants questioned them. Poseidon, for example, sent serpents to consume the priests that warned the trojans about accepting the Trojan horse. Athena (probably one of the few candidates for lawful good among the ancient deities) turned arachne into a spider for claiming that she could weave as well as Athena (which may or may not have been true--Athena turned her into a spider before the contest finished in some versions of the legend) and got mighty upset at Paris for declaring Hera the winner of the golden apple of discord. They were all very particular about being given their due.

The series of Oedipus dramas (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, etc) stressed the importance of accepting and living within the fate that the gods assigned to you rather than hubristically setting ones self against them.

So, all told, I think it does make sense for an individual to be less humble toward the gods in a D&D universe than it does in ours. However, I don't think that D&D gods modelled on the gods of the ancient world would very much appreciate that. In fact, I think they might well exhibit less tolerance for doubt, etc. than Christians accept in their paragons. Jehova is slow to anger and quick to forgive. Zeus and Athena are quick to anger and slow to forgive....

For example, I ran a paladin that blasphemed. See, the paladin's god was in a bind and could no longer bestow spells to his clerics, and he needed my paladin's help to reverse the situation (this is a published adventure written by Monte Cook). Several times my paladin used his own judgement, citing that his god had "dropped the ball" and could not be relied on in certain situations to know the correct course of action.

The whole mortals correcting the gods thing is a very modern trope. If it happened in the ancient myths, you really, really didn't want to be the mortal given that task. I suppose, though, it's what can be expected to happen if you take a Christian archetype like the paladin and plunk it down in the middle of a polytheistic world where the gods don't meet the standards the paladin does. Sooner or later, there is going to be conflict. And, at that point, you're left with the choice: either the paladin is the agent of a fallible god's will and thus loses his powers for doing the right thing or the paladin is responsible to a higher moral calling (though where that calling comes from and what makes it right is an open question in a world where evil is the equal of good) and can defy his god without ceasing to be a paladin.

No shared experiences? Then you never watched "Kung Fu"? Well, I'll fill you in. Caine was so frikkin humble, that when a jerk would insult him, Caine would apologize. The jerk could even throw food on Caine and push him around, and Caine would apologize.

But sooner or later, he'd kick their tail. Or at least that was the way it worked in the Legend Continues. But I don't believe that that kind of humility is required for a paladin or even that it is always really humility. But, that said, it would be an interesting challenge to try and play a paladin that way.