D&D General Deleted

[EzekielRaiden]

There is absolutely nothing in 3e doing what you suggest. 3e defines good, defines LG, and defines what a Paladin should and should not do, in the extent of its expectactions.

There absolutely is. Among the things the Paladin is supposed to do is avoid any association with people who aren't also LG. That alone primes things for a serious problem. The fact that the Paladin instantly, and permanently (barring a special spell AND literal divine intervention), loses ALL their supernatural powers for even the tiniest violation--all while the actual TENETS of the oath are completely invisible to the players, so they don't know whether they're breaking the rules or not, directly leads to these problems.

But the archetype has not roots there. I have even shown that thinking every crusader was heavily armored is another historical misconceptions. Axe to grind?

Okay, now you're literally getting personal and aggressive for no reason. Doubly so when, as I've said repeatedly, I don't think the Paladin has a problem!

But if you think the Crusades, and things like the holy orders associated therewith, weren't even slightly an influence on the Paladin, I'm sorry, you're just wrong. Period. They very clearly were an influence, and it is reasonable to ask, "Should we be okay with that?" My answer is yes--but for very different reasons from yours, which (by and large) I have not felt were particularly great. And this one, making it deeply personal for no reason, simply reinforces that belief.

 

[James Gasik]

There is absolutely nothing in 3e doing what you suggest. 3e defines good, defines LG, and defines what a Paladin should and should not do, in the extent of its expectactions.

The thing to keep in mind with 3e is that different books said different things. For example, the PHB says:

Ok, so someone who fights relentlessly to oppose evil and who fights evil without mercy is Lawful Good.

Got it. But wait!

Later one we're told that no, Good characters must always attempt to show mercy, and it's the job of the DM to not punish you (too much) for doing so!

There was a 3e booklet that was designed to help you create your character that had an "alignment test" to help you figure out what your alignment was, and some of the examples of good and evil acts were hilariously bad. The thing is, different people have different ideas about good and evil, and that ended up very much a part of D&D over the years, 3e being no exception. Even the designers didn't really agree on them, by all appearances. So can we blame anyone for getting the wrong idea?

 

[Kaiyanwang]

There absolutely is. Among the things the Paladin is supposed to do is avoid any association with people who aren't also LG. That alone primes things for a serious problem. The fact that the Paladin instantly, and permanently (barring a special spell AND literal divine intervention), loses ALL their supernatural powers for even the tiniest violation--all while the actual TENETS of the oath are completely invisible to the players, so they don't know whether they're breaking the rules or not, directly leads to these problems.

The paladin is not supposed to avoid association as in company or adventuring, is not supposed to share goals. Which makes sense - why share major goals with evil people? Do you think they meant to do not order together a pizza?
See my post above - you guys are giving the less charitable and unintended interpretation of these codes, then complain about it.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

There was a 3e booklet that was designed to help you create your character that had an "alignment test" to help you figure out what your alignment was, and some of the examples of good and evil acts were hilariously bad. The thing is, different people have different ideas about good and evil, and that ended up very much a part of D&D over the years, 3e being no exception. Even the designers didn't really agree on them, by all appearances. So can we blame anyone for getting the wrong idea?

I fail to understand how these are supposed to be contradictory. You fight unrepenting evildoers and show mercy to those that deserve it. Is that difficult? Don't think so.
The fact that different people have different ideas can be maintained up to a certain point unless you go full moral relativism in that case the D&D cosmology is not for you.

 

[the Jester]

So a couple of things. First, I think that considering paladins to be Crusader-inspired is probably accurate, but I think that is a secondary inspiration, with the Arthurian characters as the primary. If you look at them that way, you can see that they are supposed to be heroic ideals (even if the ideal of heroism has changed a lot since the genesis of the Arthurian tales). If you must associate them with a particular archetype, you can start there.

Second, to echo what a bunch of others have posted, I think recognizing that the the class has broadened massively over the years will help. It very quickly branched out to include antipaladins, then a paladin for each alignment- some very different- in an early Dragon Magazine. Since then, the official treatment of the class has gotten much wider and encompasses things like supernatural champions of nature and arch-villains.

So if you must associate paladins with distasteful historical figures, think of those guys as villainous paladins.

No, or at least very few, historical characters are truly heroic with no problematic elements. So the heroic paladins, who are more ideals than real, are represented by idealized characters rather than real ones: Superman and Captain America are my go-tos here (at least for LG paladins). They're also my answer to how to not be Lawful Stupid- "what would Cap do here?"

Anyway, I, too, hope the OP returns to the thread. Although I don't actually agree with the premise, I can totally see where they're coming from and can work within the framework of it.

 

[James Gasik]

I fail to understand how these are supposed to be contradictory. You fight unrepenting evildoers and show mercy to those that deserve it. Is that difficult? Don't think so.
The fact that different people have different ideas can be maintained up to a certain point unless you go full moral relativism in that case the D&D cosmology is not for you.

Ok, I quoted the PHB where it says the LG Paladin fights evil without mercy. Then I quoted this:

Are you sure there's no contradiction here?

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Ok, I quoted the PHB where it says the LG Paladin fights evil without mercy. Then I quoted this:
View attachment 365523
Are you sure there's no contradiction here?

I think is context dependent. Say Aragorn spares Grima but would not accept a Witch King surrender.
Is this the Exalted Deeds? Because I don't recall this in the PH but I could be wrong.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To me this sounds just a failure of understanding context or willingly doing to for an advantage by some problematic player. Also the robots are LN, not LG. Not relevant.

You mean the robots in the section I'm using to describe how D&D handles Law?

Your interpretation of the code is also less than charitable. I frankly don't see anything hampering usual adventuring unless the party is evil. In that case, that's not a paladin-appropriate campaign.

Breaking into people homes, killing them and taking their stuff, AKA The Core Game Loop. But it's okay, the target was Evil and we're on some Frank Castle logic.

Actual, true evil should be fought without mercy indeed. Is a threat to be destroyed. I can understand early examples about orc babies but we are past that since 3e.

First, you're supposed to be good people. 'Without mercy' shouldn't be in the dictionary for you.

Second, let's look at some of the actions post-3e that apparently deserve this lack of mercy:

• Poison Use (even just debilitating poison)
• Stealing
• Casting spells like Death Watch that let's you keep tabs on your party's needs
• Being born on an Evil plane regardless of your actual disposition
• Explicitly not trapping and brainwashing a person for a year to think and feel what you tell them.

Yeah, totally deserving of violence and brutality in the name of good!

 

[Kaiyanwang]

You mean the robots in the section I'm using to describe how D&D handles Law?


Breaking into people homes, killing them and taking their stuff, AKA The Core Game Loop. But it's okay, the target was Evil and we're on some Frank Castle logic.


First, you're supposed to be good people. 'Without mercy' shouldn't be in the dictionary for you.

Second, let's look at some of the actions post-3e that apparently deserve this lack of mercy:

• Poison Use (even just debilitating poison)
• Stealing
• Casting spells like Death Watch that let's you keep tabs on your party's needs
• Being born on an Evil plane regardless of your actual disposition
• Explicitly not trapping and brainwashing a person for a year to think and feel what you tell them.

Yeah, totally deserving of violence and brutality in the name of good!

I think this fails to understand how the universe work. You spare humanoids but this is a universe in which there is literal material, physical evil in the form of fiends (spare me more BoED nonsense please, I remember those succubi).
I think what the designers failed to do here is to overestimate the common sense available to the average player if this cannot be easily considered at the table.

 

[MoonSong]

I'll admit, as much as I support paladin's as a class, I do find the base class to be more overtly restrictive in theme and mechanics compared to most. Even if 'lawful good holy warrior' isn't required anymore, the base class still tries to force you down that route.

I feel if a lot more was moved off the base class onto the subclass, then it would open up far more variation in both theme and how the class plays. For example moving divine smite into the subclass allows the base smite to be far more varied in both effect and theme.

Oathbreaker is a good example here. It's meant to be some 'corrupted evil knight', but 90% of your stuff is still divine and good themed, so actually playing it that way is really unsatisfying.

It's almost as if we needed a way for subclass to be meaningfull at all levels and not just starting at an arbitrary later point....

I've always thought that the "Lawful" part was more important than the "Good" part.

5e's change away from requiring LG alignment, and even requiring the worship of a deity is a good move. Paladin's get their power from their Oath, whether that is an Oath sworn to a Lawful Good god, or an Oath sworn to an Ideal, or an Oath sworn to an evil lich determined on world domination. Perhaps you haven't experienced it in any games you've played, but Paladins make for great villains. Namely as Captains/ Lieutenants who serve under a greater villain.

To me the Good part was the important part. To take the hard route if that means saving more people or doing more good, not just going the easy way for the sake of expediency if that means people will get hurt. And that's why the Good paladin made sense over other alignments. Doing the right thing is hard and takes conviction in a way that dedication to evil or even order doesn't.

I think ultimately though, that @Bacon Bits made the point best. This entire game is based off of romantic fantasy from a bygone era. We're never going to escape from various problematic themes in it's roots unless we tear it down and start from scratch. Even then if we made a game that was perfect and non-problematic, that would only be by the standards of today. Give it 50 years and I'd be willing to bet gamers in 2074 would be tearing it apart for misconceptions we believe currently.

The whole original game reeks of the gospel of prosperity. And was deeply linked with puritanism and evangelical Christianity.

You could always do what Paizo did with Pathfinder 2E, and rename the class to something else. They picked Champion, which is pretty good.

At that point the class isn't even the same thing anymore. IMO, a Paladin is best when it is an agent of Good, that a random deity's minion.