Considering replacing paladin with generic holy knight type class

[DreamChaser]

I don't think that any class the can be described as an "elite warrior" or a "champion" should be a core class. These are things that need to be aspired too. The idea of the paladin as a core class has always bugged me.

I don't think there is anything damaging about having lots of prestige classes. They are there for flavor and to flesh out the bare bones classes. Each of the core classes should (IMO) be broad enough to fit into any number of stereotypes. The PrC are used to round them out.

Adding more core classes on the other hand can get messy IMO. The basic question of why paladin is a core class while Blackguard is a PrC could easily arise. You have to keep from stepping on the other classes toes and avoid the tendency to make multiple classes that are really no different from each other than the alignment on their special abilities or a couple of skills (smite good rather than smite evil for example).

As long as a PrC is either 1) a culturally specific example of a core class (like the Arcane Archer or the Dwarven Defender) or 2) a specialist in a primary aspect of a core class (such as the Lasher or the Elemental Savant) I think there is always room for them. After all there were dozens of orders of monks, knights, ordaned priests, theologians, and miscallaneous cloistered orders within the medieval Western European church, all of whom received slightly different training and orders but were founded arround a single unifying principle.

Prestige classes I don't like the idea of are ones designed to bolster a single character concept. This is better done with feats and serves to diminish the idea of PrCs. If there is no room in the culture or mythology of a world for a class of characters who can leap 50 feet into the air and drop down with a spear all while wearing full plate armor (ala Final Fantasy's Dragoon) then a prestige class should NOT be made for a player who wishes to make his favorite CRPG character into a PC.

The DM and player should sit down and make some feats and see what they can come up with. If that character trained others, and they trained some, after a while, it might become a "school of combat" which could have a PrC associated with it.

Oops...I ran off at the mouth...err fingers. Well those are my thoughts. Don't cheapen you're deities' champions by making any schmuk able to become one. Make sure that the church authorities or the gods or whomever choose the deities' champions carefully. PrC all the way.

 

[hong]

Depending on how major you want to tweak your mechanics, you have a number of choices:

- keep the paladin as-is, but change the alignment requirement to be any lawful, instead of lawful good only. Replace detect and smite evil with detect and smite chaos, and perhaps the spells and cure disease ability with bonus feats.

- remove the paladin altogether, and have various PrCs like those in DotF.

- replace the paladin with an alternative knight class, which is a champion of law. The samurai from OA can be thought of in these terms, although some of its class abilities are rather culture-specific. I've written up a port of the samurai to an occidental-style campaign, which can be found here.

 

[Steven McRownt]

Hong, your knight is very nice, but it doesn't fit with the original UV32 idea. Because this class should start from a couple of concepts:

- they have to be lawful, but they can be G,N,or E
- they are a sort of crusaders for their god
- they have not to cast spells nor have supernatural powers that mimic spells.

They have to be quite different from the core fighter, otherwise they will be nearly useless. So they will not have too many bonus feat, but they will gain combat bonuses.

Of course they have to follow a strict code of conduct; perhaps knight of solamnia+cavalier+knight of thakisis in DL make a good idea of what we're trying to make. Each of them have to be lawful, but each one tend toward a different alignment (G,N,E).

Steven McRownt

 

[hong]

Hong, your knight is very nice, but it doesn't fit with the original UV32 idea. Because this class should start from a couple of concepts:

- they have to be lawful, but they can be G,N,or E
- they are a sort of crusaders for their god
- they have not to cast spells nor have supernatural powers that mimic spells.

I'm assuming those reading this thread realise they can always tweak the backstory to fit their purposes, and ditto for any alignment restrictions. As for being a "crusader for a god", note that that's the cleric's schtick. Spellcasting powers should be gained by multiclassing to cleric, if they're desired.

They have to be quite different from the core fighter, otherwise they will be nearly useless. So they will not have too many bonus feat, but they will gain combat bonuses.

Huh?

Of course they have to follow a strict code of conduct; perhaps knight of solamnia+cavalier+knight of thakisis in DL make a good idea of what we're trying to make. Each of them have to be lawful, but each one tend toward a different alignment (G,N,E).

The code of conduct goes without saying.

 

[Steven McRownt]

A Crusader is a holy fighter who represent his god in the battlefield. A cleric (or a Priest) has not the qualities to be there, apart from war gods . Anyway, as a class they doesn't gain any spell or spell like abilities, but of course they can multiclass in cleric (Priest).

Combat bonuses stands for combat abilities. Something like "smite someone", "combat sense", or whatever.

And ....yes.... speaking of the code of conduct was quite redundant.

Steven McRownt

 

[hong]

A Crusader is a holy fighter who represent his god in the battlefield. A cleric (or a Priest) has not the qualities to be there, apart from war gods .

The cleric has _always_ been a crusader, from 1E days and even before that. Witness the following class features which only make sense for a character who's meant to spend time in the field, as opposed to in a cloister:

BAB equal to 3/4 x HD
Good Fort save
d8 hit die
Medium and heavy armour proficiency

People keep trying to turn the cleric into a generic, non-adventuring priest (out of lack of any suitable alternative, I guess), but that's not what the class is fundamentally designed for.

 

[uv23]

Morning everyone.

Ok lets take a step back away from mechanics and look at the foundations of the class.

Church of Bob is lawful evil, their clerics maintain an important role as the string pullers of the monarchy. Their focus is religion and politics and they have always used the military to facilitate their goals. At the same time, they possess an elite wing of knights drawn from the military that serve the church directly.

Hmmm, funny, now that I have written it out, it does seem better suited to a prestige class.. (since the knights do not start as knights from day one.)

I guess the problem arises when thinking of the paladin as being a core class. It really doesn't make sense in these terms. Unless.... *drum roll* the knights, rather than being drawn from the military, are drawn from nobility and trained by the church as elite knights. In which case, they could start out at level one. This could apply to all of the churches, since the setting iws one where wars have played an important historical role in creating and destroying the human nations.

Tough choices...

 

[Steven McRownt]

You know that my first post here in this thread were saying that probably the mistake comes from having the paladin as a core class. And that you should think to PrC instead. But i glady give you all my help to substitue the paladin core class with a more generic and versatile knight class, suitable for Good, Neutral and Evil Faiths. That could be hard to find a common line, but i like the challenge, so here i am!

Anyway, if you want to take some time more to think about it, do not worry....

Steven McRownt

 

[uv23]

Well unfortunately there's a fair bit of overhead in ditching the paladin altogether as a core class. There are a lot of other prestige classes for example that rel on the paladin as a core class.

I guess I could see the new archetype either way though. Both examples work. Either the church knights are drawn from experienced warriors, or they are indoctrinated and trained as hurch knights from day one. I lean towards the latter because it suits the divine grace/zealousness of the character better if he was basically born into the institution or brought in at a very young age.

Truly, the easiest thing to do would be to simply change the paladin class to allow any lawful alignment, with slight modifications to his abilities - i.e. either infidels (clerics/paladins of other gods) or chaos as the target of his abilities and protections. Maybe I'll just do that since it would have the least impact while maintaining my original goals.

Thoughts?

 

[hong]

Well unfortunately there's a fair bit of overhead in ditching the paladin altogether as a core class. There are a lot of other prestige classes for example that rel on the paladin as a core class.

So ditch them too.

(Actually, I can't think of _any_ PrC that _requires_ paladinhood as a requirement. Which ones were you thinking of?)