D&D 5E Is Anyone Unhappy About Non-LG Paladins?

[Zatsuku]

At first it did actually bother me a little bit, but that was more before I really realized subclasses are a substitute for things like archetypes alternate classes, prestige classes, paragon paths, etc. Now I consider the Paladin a chasis for things like the traditional Paladin, the Blackguard/Antipaladin, the Avenger and whatever else. And suddenly it is a much more exciting class to me.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I have never been a fan of alignments, so this doesn't really bother me.

 

[Yora]

It's a good thing. A first step to phasing out alignment entirely. I also heard somewhere that it doesn't have direct mechanical impact anymore, so it seems to exist for the sake of tradition, without doing anything.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

At first it did actually bother me a little bit, but that was more before I really realized subclasses are a substitute for things like archetypes alternate classes, prestige classes, paragon paths, etc. Now I consider the Paladin a chasis for things like the traditional Paladin, the Blackguard/Antipaladin, the Avenger and whatever else. And suddenly it is a much more exciting class to me.

As I understand it, that's exactly what they are going for. So you got the message as intended, so to speak.

 

[Nytmare]

In my setting of choice (The Scarred Lands) every god had their own flavor of paladins and holy warriors that collected around their particular alignment and class of choice.

The Godess of the Hunt had chaotic good Paladins, Rangers, and multi classed combinations as her honor guard. Paladins who pledged themselves to the God of Knowledge were lawful neutral Paladins and Monks. The Godess of Shadows surrounded herself with neutral evil Paladin Assassins and Rogues.

So I'd be hard pressed to say that it's a selling point since it's what I'd be doing anyway; but I like that it leaves me less that I'll have to tinker with.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Oh thank the Maker we might actually see an end to the 'Your Paladin can't kill those baby orcs he has to be LG!!!'

I mean I'm not holding my breath or anything but am quietly optimistic.

So a major selling point for me is seeing the end of the LG-only paladin.

 

[LFK]

The thing that sort of throws me about the LG-only Paladin is that they don't really fit into most any of the D&D worlds. Like, LG fits, but why are Paladins limited to LG? The world's mythology isn't one where there's God who made everything and cast down Satan for rebellion and people who are bad go to hell. The gods of D&D are broadly all on the same power level, and there's tons of them, each incrementally different from the next. Evil in D&D is a defensible ideological tenet with its own gods and saints and champions and patrons just as much as Good.

Hell isn't so much your punishment for failing to be good as it is your employer for choosing to be evil.

 

[DMZ2112]

Whether your D&D5 paladin is an LG or a Motorola paladin, I sure hope you weren't planning on using the digital tools anytime soon OH SNAP YES I WENT THERE

I've always been of the opinion that you can vastly oversimplify alignment by saying that a character's ethical alignment refers to their means and their moral alignment refers to their ends. My stance on alignment restrictions for classes has therefore always been split.

I think there's a genuine validity to, say, monks or paladins being lawful, or barbarians or rogues being chaotic, because these classes use lawful and chaotic means to reach their ends, respectively. You could argue that to death, and I am not saying there are not ample reasons why that is not necessarily the case. I'm just making the case that there is some justification for it.

But the idea of morally bound classes doesn't sit as well with me. I don't even really see assassins as necessarily evil. Chaotic, yes, because of their means, but every D&D character kills with relative impunity. The difference in the assassins case is that he does so in "inappropriate" circumstances that could land him in prison if he is not careful.

Depending on the assassin's method of target selection, there's no reason why he couldn't be just as "good" as the fighter who kills his way through a bandit camp, if, say, he creeps through Waterdeep killing crime lords in their sleep.

So, long story short, I'm glad there will be paladins of many alignments (again) in D&D5, but I hope that the designers considered the fact that a lawful paladin and a chaotic paladin should have access to very different abilities and reflected this in subclass design.

 

[Marius Delphus]

First non-human paladins, now non-LG paladins? What is the world coming to?!

Actually, yeah, it's all right by me. I've long thought of the paladin as a "holy champion" and even if they're not called Myrikhan, Garath, Lyan, Paramander, Fantra, Illrigger, Arrikhan, and Anti-Paladin, then at least there's room for the concept. Something tells me the DMG will mention restricting the paladin's alignment as a "nod" to 1E/2E.

 

[was]

I like the move. It's nice to see non-LG gods with champions that actually match their alignments.