Dragon No. 319 arrived today
- Thread starter Shadowdancer
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I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm not sure where you're getting this 'immutable fact,' but even such, the proposed alterations are still quite lawful. It's just changed from a "respect authority" to a "when the revolution comes, don't allow it to be a chaotic morass...*organize* it."
It is a character archetype that fits well in the setting: the warrior who follows a better code, because it improves himself, and may restore the world if all were to follow it. A suffering figure who is in constant moral and physical danger. If there's nothing *against* having a Paladin in the setting, we're back to a "why change it in the first place" idea.
Well, that first point really depends upon your interpretation of how the clerics are getting their powers. Certainly the elements don't just 'grant spells,' right? So simply by their faith in the power of these elemental forces, they get spells from them. Clerics of gods and such don't appear not because they're impossible, but just because no one's ever felt a need for them. When the elements themselves are more powerful and immediate, why do you need some guy in the sky? It's a cultural choice -- Dark Sun has no use for gods, and no gods really ever arose. That doesn't mean that the elements grant spells any differently to a DS cleric than to a cleric in any other campaign setting.
And I don't see this "further deviation." At the very most, what would need to be changed are spells/day to PP. Not even that if you go for a little paragraph for non-magical paladins. Or you could just say they get it the same way the clerics of fire get their powers -- the paladins just get it from the "moral" element, as opposed to the fire. And the moral element can be seen as a powerful force in the world, moving through each hero as they try to make the world a better place.
The question all along was "why don't they belong?" If there's no real solid answer to it, then they can belong. And because there are people who like to play fatalistic warriors of noble bearing in a savage world, they should belong.
LoneWolf23
First Post
Ok, first off I don't see why a setting like Dark Sun can't use Paladins.. If anything, the sheer oppressive amount of tyrannical overlords and the utter hopelessness just cries out for heroes, and Heroism is what Paladins do best.
Still, I think using the Variant Paladin without Spellcasting from The Complete Warrior would be best, keeping many iconic Paladin abilities, which one could explain as a natural psionic gift, without having to explain where they got spells from. In fact, you could adapt some of the Paladin's class abilities to the setting: instead of being immune to disease and able to cure disease, an Athasi Paladin could be immune to the effects of Thirst and able to create water as per Create Water a few times a day.
Secondly, Paladins -can- fit into the setting, provided you find the right niche for them. Let's see, they're Holy Warriors, Heroes with a Mission, upholders of a code and protectors of the downtrodden and innocent.
Here's a Paladin concept for you - The Tribal Protector: a warrior born with the ordained mission of protecting his Tribe and his people, this Paladin often lives on the outskirts of his tribe, either preceding them to trailblaze an area in the path of the tribe's migration, clearing it of enemies, or patroling a wide area around the tribe's home to run off hostiles before they endanger the tribe itself. Such is the devotion these Protectors have towards their people that they are ready to give their lives so that even one more of the tribe's people can live. Their Code involves fighting to protect their Tribe's members from enemies, keeping order within the tribe itself, protect the tribe's resources, uphold yourself to the highest standards as a representative of your tribe and it's honor..
or another - The Guardians of Tyr: In the 300 years that Tyr has been a free city, an order of champions arose to protect the city's hard-earned freedom from all who would seek to destroy or corrupt it. These paladins are a secret society of holy warriors who've managed to tap into a source of divine power allowing them to use divine magic without swearing allegiance to a Dragon King. Sworn by their code to ferreting all threats to Tyr's freedom, these warriors hunt down spies from other city-states, as well as defilers, criminal cults, black market slavers and other such unsavory characters, bringing upon them the mercy of swift retribution for their crimes.
Or yet another - The Liberators: another secret society working in shadows within the city-states of the Dragon-Kings, these masked warriors hold themselves to a code which gives great value to freedom as the right of every sentient being, and thus seek to undo the rule of slavery which the Dragon-Kings have imposed upon the Tablelands. They will risk their lives to save even a single slave from a cruel master's yoke, will perform extremly public acts of rebellious mockery against the rule or the Dragon-Kings, and damage the powerbase of the Templars through whatever means necessary. Then, once their mission of the day has been done, they retreat into the shadows, remove their disguises and escape Templar notice while they plan their next strike against the tyrants...
I could go on, but you get the picture, I think.
Still, I think using the Variant Paladin without Spellcasting from The Complete Warrior would be best, keeping many iconic Paladin abilities, which one could explain as a natural psionic gift, without having to explain where they got spells from. In fact, you could adapt some of the Paladin's class abilities to the setting: instead of being immune to disease and able to cure disease, an Athasi Paladin could be immune to the effects of Thirst and able to create water as per Create Water a few times a day.
Secondly, Paladins -can- fit into the setting, provided you find the right niche for them. Let's see, they're Holy Warriors, Heroes with a Mission, upholders of a code and protectors of the downtrodden and innocent.
Here's a Paladin concept for you - The Tribal Protector: a warrior born with the ordained mission of protecting his Tribe and his people, this Paladin often lives on the outskirts of his tribe, either preceding them to trailblaze an area in the path of the tribe's migration, clearing it of enemies, or patroling a wide area around the tribe's home to run off hostiles before they endanger the tribe itself. Such is the devotion these Protectors have towards their people that they are ready to give their lives so that even one more of the tribe's people can live. Their Code involves fighting to protect their Tribe's members from enemies, keeping order within the tribe itself, protect the tribe's resources, uphold yourself to the highest standards as a representative of your tribe and it's honor..
or another - The Guardians of Tyr: In the 300 years that Tyr has been a free city, an order of champions arose to protect the city's hard-earned freedom from all who would seek to destroy or corrupt it. These paladins are a secret society of holy warriors who've managed to tap into a source of divine power allowing them to use divine magic without swearing allegiance to a Dragon King. Sworn by their code to ferreting all threats to Tyr's freedom, these warriors hunt down spies from other city-states, as well as defilers, criminal cults, black market slavers and other such unsavory characters, bringing upon them the mercy of swift retribution for their crimes.
Or yet another - The Liberators: another secret society working in shadows within the city-states of the Dragon-Kings, these masked warriors hold themselves to a code which gives great value to freedom as the right of every sentient being, and thus seek to undo the rule of slavery which the Dragon-Kings have imposed upon the Tablelands. They will risk their lives to save even a single slave from a cruel master's yoke, will perform extremly public acts of rebellious mockery against the rule or the Dragon-Kings, and damage the powerbase of the Templars through whatever means necessary. Then, once their mission of the day has been done, they retreat into the shadows, remove their disguises and escape Templar notice while they plan their next strike against the tyrants...
I could go on, but you get the picture, I think.
capn_frank
First Post
Salambo
This article also confused me until I had the bright idea of searching for "Salammbo" on Google.
Salammbo is a novel published in 1862 by Gustave Flaubert the French novelist, that describes the aftermath of the Punic Wars. Originally published in French you can order an English version from Amazon here or get a free text version from Project Gutenberg here.
This confused me even more until I found this link. It's a video game based on the novel. I don't know why Dragon didn't label this as a "Silicon Sorcery" article - I guess they were concentrating on the Dark Sun articles.
The trailer on The Adventure Company's website is beautiful and a good review of the game can be found here. The game must have been out for awhile because I found it for as low as $9.99 (or price of a box of Archfiends).
Capn Frank
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps
someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
-Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
This article also confused me until I had the bright idea of searching for "Salammbo" on Google.
Salammbo is a novel published in 1862 by Gustave Flaubert the French novelist, that describes the aftermath of the Punic Wars. Originally published in French you can order an English version from Amazon here or get a free text version from Project Gutenberg here.
This confused me even more until I found this link. It's a video game based on the novel. I don't know why Dragon didn't label this as a "Silicon Sorcery" article - I guess they were concentrating on the Dark Sun articles.
The trailer on The Adventure Company's website is beautiful and a good review of the game can be found here. The game must have been out for awhile because I found it for as low as $9.99 (or price of a box of Archfiends).
Capn Frank
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps
someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
-Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Well, I realise that we're quickly approaching the point of 'agree to disagree here.' since neither of us are able to fully grasp the others viewpoint well enough to concede (not that there's anything wrong). But, I'll give it a go once more.
Actually, they do. Faith by itself is absolutely powerless. The elemental lords work as representatives of the plane in question and select individuals to carry out the fight between the planes themselves on Athas. The cleric-to-be oftentimes forms a pact with the elemental lords. The elemental lords though don't care about good and evil, or right and wrong. They only want the proliferation of their element. The size and power of each plane is mirrored by its abundance (or lack thereof) on Athas. Hence some elements are on the verge of extinction (such as the elemental plane of rain, and that of water) while others have grown in power tremendously (the plane of silt).
Sorry, but even those who are generally in favor (as seen here, as well as almost 3 years worth of debate on the topic over at the WOTC boards) of including the paladin agree that its probably best if altered. I'm not really against the paladin in general as much as I am against the copy pasted core class version of it. I've already tinkered the holy liberator, consecrated harrier, church inquisitor (each with highly altered flavor text) renamed simply liberator, harrier, and inquisitor respectively (though I've only gotten around to using the inquisitor).
The paladin's abilities themselves come from divine favor, something that there is none of on Athas. That means ditching most of the abilities that rely on that, leaving basically a fighter with morals. Restructure the abilities then to be fueled by psionics and you simply have a psychic warrior of sorts with a code of ethics attatched. Sorry, but most of the ways I can think of to work it (altered versions of the paly) could be more easily filled by other core classes that fit better. I'd be far more inclined to keep the code aspects as flavor than mechanicaly incorporated into the class. If a fighter wants to follow such a code, then by all means. If a PC wants to be heroic, I won't stop him. In a game though where a major theme is the debate over which is best, the needs of the few or the needs of the many, and where there is often a result of the ends justifying the means, a class that is based on such ideologies like honor, virtue, chivalry, etc cut more across the gain than I would allow.
A fine concept, for a fighter. Explain then where you can in this example (which I do like for a fighter mind you), the tribal protector gains spellcasting, the ability to heal others, becomes immune to disease, gains a special mount, etc.
Same question here. What divine source are you refering to? The closest thing to divine on Athas are the elemental planes and the lords there, and they're certainly not about holy crusades. People are nothing more than tools to them, to be used as such. Of course, its a fairly mutual view taken by the clerics too, many of which use the power gained by the elemental lords as a tool in their own agendas, rather than fanatic religeous worship (but all clerics are individuals, so there are some zealots among them who view it as religion). The Sorceror-King's were also in a way god-like, but there were not gods, not divine at all. A key aspect of their creation allowed them to 'tap' into the elemental planes and act as a channel for their templars to gain spells. Now, you could argue that lowly little mortals eventually learned also how to tap into this power, but that, IMO cheapens the SKs.
I've used the general idea of the holy liberator PrC (albeit quite altered in the end) for this very aspect. In fact, there's even a precedent for it in the game in the near mythical tribe of ex-slaves known as The Free. Of course, like all things of Athas, the myths that talk of a group of people who set slaves free where ever and when ever they can is bunk. The Free do release slaves, but they release them to die in the deserts as freemen, not as slaves laboring away their last breath. They don't do it out of nobility, but out of sheer hatred and revenge against their former masters in the cities to disrupt the slave trade itself. That some slaves manage to live long enough to tell about the tribe is a side effect.
Extremely public acts? They'd be dead in a day. Everyone would be against them, from the common citizens who fear the templar's inquisitions, to the other slaves who would hope that turning in the Liberator would at least get them a reduced work load.
Actually, they do. Faith by itself is absolutely powerless. The elemental lords work as representatives of the plane in question and select individuals to carry out the fight between the planes themselves on Athas. The cleric-to-be oftentimes forms a pact with the elemental lords. The elemental lords though don't care about good and evil, or right and wrong. They only want the proliferation of their element. The size and power of each plane is mirrored by its abundance (or lack thereof) on Athas. Hence some elements are on the verge of extinction (such as the elemental plane of rain, and that of water) while others have grown in power tremendously (the plane of silt).
Sorry, but even those who are generally in favor (as seen here, as well as almost 3 years worth of debate on the topic over at the WOTC boards) of including the paladin agree that its probably best if altered. I'm not really against the paladin in general as much as I am against the copy pasted core class version of it. I've already tinkered the holy liberator, consecrated harrier, church inquisitor (each with highly altered flavor text) renamed simply liberator, harrier, and inquisitor respectively (though I've only gotten around to using the inquisitor).
The paladin's abilities themselves come from divine favor, something that there is none of on Athas. That means ditching most of the abilities that rely on that, leaving basically a fighter with morals. Restructure the abilities then to be fueled by psionics and you simply have a psychic warrior of sorts with a code of ethics attatched. Sorry, but most of the ways I can think of to work it (altered versions of the paly) could be more easily filled by other core classes that fit better. I'd be far more inclined to keep the code aspects as flavor than mechanicaly incorporated into the class. If a fighter wants to follow such a code, then by all means. If a PC wants to be heroic, I won't stop him. In a game though where a major theme is the debate over which is best, the needs of the few or the needs of the many, and where there is often a result of the ends justifying the means, a class that is based on such ideologies like honor, virtue, chivalry, etc cut more across the gain than I would allow.
A fine concept, for a fighter. Explain then where you can in this example (which I do like for a fighter mind you), the tribal protector gains spellcasting, the ability to heal others, becomes immune to disease, gains a special mount, etc.
Same question here. What divine source are you refering to? The closest thing to divine on Athas are the elemental planes and the lords there, and they're certainly not about holy crusades. People are nothing more than tools to them, to be used as such. Of course, its a fairly mutual view taken by the clerics too, many of which use the power gained by the elemental lords as a tool in their own agendas, rather than fanatic religeous worship (but all clerics are individuals, so there are some zealots among them who view it as religion). The Sorceror-King's were also in a way god-like, but there were not gods, not divine at all. A key aspect of their creation allowed them to 'tap' into the elemental planes and act as a channel for their templars to gain spells. Now, you could argue that lowly little mortals eventually learned also how to tap into this power, but that, IMO cheapens the SKs.
I've used the general idea of the holy liberator PrC (albeit quite altered in the end) for this very aspect. In fact, there's even a precedent for it in the game in the near mythical tribe of ex-slaves known as The Free. Of course, like all things of Athas, the myths that talk of a group of people who set slaves free where ever and when ever they can is bunk. The Free do release slaves, but they release them to die in the deserts as freemen, not as slaves laboring away their last breath. They don't do it out of nobility, but out of sheer hatred and revenge against their former masters in the cities to disrupt the slave trade itself. That some slaves manage to live long enough to tell about the tribe is a side effect.
Extremely public acts? They'd be dead in a day. Everyone would be against them, from the common citizens who fear the templar's inquisitions, to the other slaves who would hope that turning in the Liberator would at least get them a reduced work load.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
reiella said:Interesting on the DK note, more proof that DK was a "Meta-plot" mechanics book, anycase.
The "living vortex" idea was retconned later. Defilers & Preservers: The Wizards of Athas states that sorcerer-kings ability to grant elemental spells to their templars is a feature granted to them because they used the Dark Lens in their transformations. This means that theoretically, another high level wizards/psion can use the Dark Lens during their metamorphosis and also be able to grant spells.
Which begs the question, how did they come to possess the Dark Lens? Not a very easy thing to do since it was tossed into a molten lake that has likely solidified with the raging perpetual (and quite deadly) storm going on overhead. The statement in D&P seems to serve the same purpose as the vortices did originally (albeit, it handled it much better) and that was to justify the SKs having spell granting power, but not allow such for PCs who aspire to become advanced beings. Of course, this assumes that one's game includes events of the Pentad novels as canon and starts after the end of the last book (or with the revised box set, or with the Drag/Dungon articles 300 years later).
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Well, then, we basically agree -- there is no reason there cannot be a "paladin." Alter the flavor text, maybe go the non-magical alternate route, badabing.
So why can't we do that?
Kamikaze Midget said:
From the PHB pg 42 "Additionally, paladins swear to follow a code of conduct that is in line with lawfulness and goodness." This is the code that if violated forces the paladin to lose all paladin spells and abilities, or if he ceases to be lawful good or willfully commits an evil act. And since the dragon article didn't really change that aspect. . .
Again Dark Sun is a setting where the distinction between good and evil is blurred, by design. Hence if there is no clear cut distinction where exactly does the PHB paladin fit in? As many people have pointed out a variation on the paladin could be created, but these are no longer paladins per the PHB (which is what the Dragon article was proclaiming to use). Elemental-based holy warriors are not true paladins. The variant paladins from UA are closer, but they still are lawful good and have the same restrictions on their code as do the PHB version - it is just a matter of how the 'enforce' their code.
Is Hammanu truely as Evil as Dregoth? He is a SK so by his very nature he has to be evil, but there are definitely shades of evil involved here. Hammanu cares deeply for his city and his charges. Paladins (per the PHB) can't really exist in a world where there are shades of evil, that is where there is no clear distinction between the guys in the white hats and the guys in the black hats.
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