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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xodis" data-source="post: 6335428" data-attributes="member: 6777265">Still going I see lol.For me, and YMMV, the reason a Paladin must be LG boils down to my definition of him: Holy Knight who follows a strict code of Chivalry (what we dreamed Knights were as kids until we became educated and learned otherwise).This definition is what forces his Lawful Good alignment. "Holy Knight" can be broken down to a Warrior of Good, its pretty simple. If we go with Divine Knight instead, Warrior of Good still works. Holy and Divine are both defined as coming/related to a god; Good (according to webster). So its hard to argue against being a Good character (and as a PHB class has never been anything less than good I believe). If you're evil replace Holy Knight with Profane/Vile/Unholy/ Knight. All of these words are pretty much "antigood" which brings us to the Paladins polar opposite the Blackguard.Now following a code as strict as Chivalry has to make him Lawful. His power is suppose to come from his god to power him to fight the forces of evil. He earns this great power (which can be arguable from edition to edition) by his infallible loyalty to his god. This type of loyalty takes someone who follows orders or is Lawful. A Chaotic person is free to follow their whims, so is a Neutral character only with a little bit of restraint. They would fail at some point (because even some LG characters do) to follow the code, forfeiting their powers.So we have Law being a key factor here and Good being the Paladin version while Blackguard is the Evil version. So what is a Lawful Neutral Paladin? A Religious Warrior of Law? So how would that work mechanically? You smite Chaos? So regardless if someone broke the Law or not you can smite them for being a person of freewill....sounds like a Dictator to me. What if its a CG person and they didnt actually break the law? Now you're just a jerk. We could go with the alternative that you get to choose between Smite Good or Smite Evil....but wouldn't that choice alone tip the scales one way or the other? Or if you could do both at the same time....how are LN gods not in control of everything being unlimited in power even compared to other gods?Not everyone agrees that powers should be able to be taken away, but  when your powers are a gift and not your own raw power like the other  Fighters or Arcane magic users, that is the risk you take. If I let you  live in my house and have 1 rule, should you break that rule you wont be  living in my house, its simple. Clerics can lose their power too, its  just not as common and they are only following their Gods work not that  of Chivalry/Paladin as well. Its suppose to be hard, thats why Paladins  are special. This is the "Paladin" to me, at my table that is how its played, but I'm not unhappy about the openness of the Paladin in the rules. It seems watered down to me, but thats me. IMO its to help those that cant roleplay a Paladin any way but "Lawful Stupid", which seems to be a common complaint from many online.</blockquote>

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