Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Ravellion]

I still just think that actually 'earning' the class, with some light restrictions, would be better. Something along the lines of

Alignment: LG
BAB:+5
Special: Must have lived by a code of conduct from 1st level onwards.

Rav

 

[Privateer]

[Special: Must have lived by a code of conduct from 1st level onwards.

Rav [/B]

Although that would disqualify reforming bad-guys and those who heard the call later in life. I think just following a paladin's code from that point onward would suffice.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Fighting for freedom is a chaotic good act,

So a LG or LN person CAN'T fight a LE regime? Or a CE despot? ANYONE can fight for their freedom. Until recently, when the general public decided to start doing their best sheep imitation, fighting for freedom was the natural state of mankind, regardless of their alignment. The only difference in this regard is that a Lawful Good person recognizes that freedom carries responsibility with it while the Chaotic person takes the view that freedom is complete in and of itself.

...and I don't know that I'd classify vengence-inspired vigilante justice as particularly LG either.

It is when the Law of the land is corrupt, and the goal of the vigilante is restoring order and rule of law to lawlessness. Batman is actually a bad example, IMO, because his alignment changes drastically depending on who's writing him. Good Example: Samurai Jack. Aku is the legitimate authority of the world, but does that make Jack CG? Heck, no. Jack is extremely Lawful.

Wouldn't following one's heart be difficult for a LG character?

Not if their heart is Lawful. You're presupposing that people can't either a) naturally work that way OR b) become that way through discipline and training. Both are possible.

Nobody ever said anything about taking the paladin away. We're just talking about opening it up to be a champion of your ideology of choice.

And I repeat, give it a name appropriate to the ideology and I'll shut up. Yet another aspect of our increasingly Chaotic Inane culture is that no one wants to fess up to the idea that the labels we attach to things have significance (at least when the subjects themselves have significance).

Nietzsche would have a field day with this

 

[jgbrowning]

The designers of 3E weren't the first to come up with that. I know for a fact it was present in 2E. It might have been in 1E, I'm not sure.

Anyways... why is it so hard to imagine that two followers of the same god could have different alignments? In a lot of cases, alignemnt isn't even an important aspect of the god. If I'm a blacksmith, I'm going to worship the god of blacksmiths, even if I don't agree with everything he says.

How many different Christian denominations are there? Each one interprets the same text in a different way. If real life were as simple as D&D, I bet they'd even have different alignments.

I agree. It isn't hard to imagine two followers of the same god having different alignments.

What's hard to imagine is a god giving them both power knowing that they would naturally chose to perform actions that the god would not perform.

Using the historical anaysis of this doesn't quite fit. If the christian god or Allah, or Yaweh could speak directly to his followers there wouldn't be so many different people holding different beliefs.

Also, certain aspects of each god are sorta what i would term as "Sacred Cows" of them... see my post to theoderic.. they're the parts of a god's discription that differentiaties that god from other gods. Allowing a worshipper to not follow that belief that is the very core of the god and still thinking the god would give them power is, IMHO, silly.

example. St. Cuthbert. LN god "exacts revenge and just punishment on those who transgress the law." Why on earth would he ever give a true neutral cleric any powers? That true neutral cleric won't follow Cuthbert's core belief. use Pelor and you have to wonder why Pelor would give powers to a true neutral cleric as well....

i don't have any problems with worshippers of differring alignment than the gods.. i have a huge problem with clerics and paladins though..

But anyway to get back to how a paladins alignment requirements are silly... , would someone answer my questions?

thanks,

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Here's why Paladins are Lawful Good in D&D.

Paladins represent an ideal. They are meant to be larger than life heroes. The best of the best. So, they had to be the ultimate embodiment of Good.

This means they do the things that regular guys like us don't. They are ready to sacrifice everything solely in the defense of innocents. They take honesty and fair play very, very seriously, and don't take short cuts in such matters just because it's easier. They don't associate with persons of dark or corrupt character. They have a code that they follow to the strictest letter.

To follow such a code of honor so strictly, you must (in D&D alignment terms, which are simplistic in many ways) be Lawful.

Holy Liberators, the chaotic good cousins of Paladins, have no such code. They just have to be good guys, and they also fight for freedom. But you know, that really doesn't capture that "going a step beyond what regular people do" feel that Paladins do.

good post! but i have to disagree with you here. (imagine that, me being disagreeable.. )

Implicit in your thought pattern is the idea that only Lawful Good "represent an ideal. They are meant to be larger than life heroes. The best of the best." I disagree.

every alignment represents an ideal (it may not be a straightforward ideal like a paladins, but it can often be just as hard.. True Neutral, IMHO, is just as tough). every class is also meant to be the "larger than life hero" within their respective domain. Monks kick butt, the best of the best, if your talking about unarmed hand to hand. Rogue's are the best of the best at a tremendously varied number of things...

Any LG character is like this "This means they do the things that regular guys like us don't. They are ready to sacrifice everything solely in the defense of innocents. They take honesty and fair play very, very seriously, and don't take short cuts in such matters just because it's easier. They don't associate with persons of dark or corrupt character. They have a code that they follow to the strictest letter." Paladin is just the only class that HAS to be lawful good. A LG Monk would act exactly the same way... they would have a code (not a paladin's code mind you, but a code nonetheless).. and if they broke that code they would lose thier abilities as well, just like a paladin.

joe b.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Anyone ever stop to think why the cows are sacred?

Yeah. That was the point of my post above.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Implicit in your thought pattern is the idea that only Lawful Good "represent an ideal. They are meant to be larger than life heroes. The best of the best." I disagree.

That's your right, but from all the traditional Western moral codes (Christian, Aristotlean, etc.) LG is the epitome of virtue. There are other moral codes out there, certainly, but D&D is pretty much in lockstep with these.

 

[jgbrowning]

So a LG or LN person CAN'T fight a LE regime? Or a CE despot? ANYONE can fight for their freedom. Until recently, when the general public decided to start doing their best sheep imitation, fighting for freedom was the natural state of mankind, regardless of their alignment. The only difference in this regard is that a Lawful Good person recognizes that freedom carries responsibility with it while the Chaotic person takes the view that freedom is complete in and of itself.

It is when the Law of the land is corrupt, and the goal of the vigilante is restoring order and rule of law to lawlessness. Batman is actually a bad example, IMO, because his alignment changes drastically depending on who's writing him. Good Example: Samurai Jack. Aku is the legitimate authority of the world, but does that make Jack CG? Heck, no. Jack is extremely Lawful.


And I repeat, give it a name appropriate to the ideology and I'll shut up. Yet another aspect of our increasingly Chaotic Inane culture is that no one wants to fess up to the idea that the labels we attach to things have significance (at least when the subjects themselves have significance).

Nietzsche would have a field day with this

I see we're at loggerheads again, Canis, my arch-enemy *muhahahahahaha* (evil laugh)

Would you please define how a paladin can fight a Lawful Evil society without being chaotic? No matter how he does it he is promoting chaos, because any social change will lead to chaos.

In fact, even his single act of breaking laws that are "unjust" is a chaotic act, at least its neutral.

Lawful Evil = "Lawful" which the paladin must be, and "Evil" which the paladin may never be.. not even once.
Lawful Evil does not = Evil.

There are no "corrupt laws." there are only "laws" and "corruption" (which you interept as evil, but corruption is not defacto evil)

And to adress your name/ideology concept. I have already given how many other definitions besides yours allow for the use of Paladin as a title for those who are not Lawful Good. I'll repeat them here:

"their are several definitions that have nothing to do with the DnD concepts of law and good.

1 : a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2 : a leading champion of a cause
3 : A paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion.
4 : A strong supporter or defender of a cause
5 : Any of the 12 peers of Charlemagne's court.
6 : ? (a really good holy knight guy like galahad, who always follows his kings orders)

ok, looking at the definitions you have to agree with me that the concept of the DnD "Lawful Good and only Lawful Good" does not fit the majority of the definitions.

1,2,4 and 5 obviously do not require Lawful Good alignments."

The power of name you are referring to is a personal experience to you. I DON'T have any connections to the name Paladin meaning only lawful good, because it actually means many different things, most of them not Lawful Good. To me a Paladin of Grummsh is completely acceptable.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

That's your right, but from all the traditional Western moral codes (Christian, Aristotlean, etc.) LG is the epitome of virtue. There are other moral codes out there, certainly, but D&D is pretty much in lockstep with these.

So you're saying that there are no other ideals besides LG?

druids?


joe b.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Would you please define how a paladin can fight a Lawful Evil society without being chaotic?

You're the one asking for consistency from the gods. If a law is evil, why wouldn't a LG god want his paladins to root it out? it's ruining the perfection of the combination of Law with Good.

Furthermore, following every piddling little secular law is one of the roads that leads to Lawful Stupid. The DIVINE MANDATE far outweighs any secular law. Hence, disobeying an unjust law is not Chaotic. Dismantling the Law may be, but trying to change it is NOT. Even if that means changing the entire system, provided your goal is Law, Order, and Justice.

You're treating Lawful Good as if it can be separated into its component parts (a common error around D&D). It's a single mindset. You uphold the SYNTHESIS of Law and Good, not one or the other at different times and places.

No matter how he does it he is promoting chaos, because any social change will lead to chaos.

Do you actually believe this? We might have less common ground than I thought...

In fact, even his single act of breaking laws that are "unjust" is a chaotic act, at least its neutral.

Again, that's insisting on a narrow and ill-considered definition of what it means to be Lawful, and completely disregarding what it means to be Good. And still treating them as separable concepts in the mind of a LG character or his god.

Also, for an example, again I point you to Samurai Jack. He's constantly fighting a LE regime in Aku, but he never acts in a non-Lawful Good way.

Lawful Evil = "Lawful" which the paladin must be, and "Evil" which the paladin may never be.. not even once.
Lawful Evil does not = Evil.

No, it's worse. It's the tools of Good, corrupted to do Evil. That's the one thing I never understood about Planescape. They kept insisting that LG outsiders hated CE ones more than LE ones. Huh? Not only are they Evil, but they have corrupted Order in order to spread their Evil. There's nothing that should be more galling to a paladin (or any LG character) than that, IMO.

Again, I think it's part of treating the two components of alignment as independent parts of the person.

There are no "corrupt laws." there are only "laws" and "corruption" (which you interept as evil, but corruption is not defacto evil)

Corruption exists to serve a selfish end. Since Selfish = Evil, Corruption = Evil.

The power of name you are referring to is a personal experience to you. I DON'T have any connections to the name Paladin meaning only lawful good, because it actually means many different things, most of them not Lawful Good. To me a Paladin of Grummsh is completely acceptable.

Again, find me an educated non-D&D player who doesn't recite Aristotlean virtues when confronted with the word paladin. D&D Players are the ones with the skewed perspective on this word. Personally, I think it comes from years of sitting around a table watching a character with no discernable morality "play a paladin." That's the only reason you can wrap your head around a "paladin" who isn't Lawful Good.

Also, I'm not talking about the power of the name to ME. I'm talking about the need to acknowledge significant differences with significant labels. That goes WELL beyond my personal preference.

So you're saying that there are no other ideals besides LG?

druids?

DON'T get me started. Druids ARE Lawful Good. It's our inability to take the long view that labels them as Neutral (but that's a whole 'nuther argument).

At any rate, D&D treats druids very poorly, actually. And they are NOT considered a moral ideal by the game, like paladins are.

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