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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1794411" data-attributes="member: 707">hong, thanks for taking the time to write a serious post.I did not mean to suggest that you didn't know who Saint George was, or Sir Galahad.  I've read posts by you elsewhere that lead me to believe you're a very learned individual.  However, not everyone who reads this thread has your background, and since I was dropping names as examples of a "shtick" without going into greater depth regarding that shtick, I thought it sensible to link the name to a summary of the legend.For me, this is not the case.  Sir Galahad was not a fighter.  He was pure enough, and good enough that he was able to recover the Holy Grail where others failed.  His is an example of the extremely high-standards paladins are held to, IMO.  He is also a warrior of god, which is one of the key concepts for my interpretation of the class.  A fighter who worships god is not quite the same.But this can be said of any class.  The ancient celtic druids could not (AFAIK) shapeshift or cast spells either.  But those powers mesh well with the concept of the druid.  Even as Lay-On-Hands and Divine Grace mesh well with the St. George concept of the paladin.Perhaps, then, I misspoke myself earlier.  I must agree that a fighter, or any class, really, can be made to fit the heroic ideal.  However, I think that the flavor of heroic ideal embodied by the various examples I, and you, have given is still worthy of a shtick.  Mechanically, the paladin is the hybrid of fighter and cleric, even as the new Hexblade is the hybrid of fighter and sorcerer.  Thematically, the paladin serves to embody those many myths of the holy knight that you listed in your previous post.The paladin archtype isn't morally ambiguous.  That's what draws me to it.  I'll admit that, in the sense of designing class abilities, _knight_ is more general than _holy warrior in the vein of Saint George and Sir Galahad_.  But I think the second archtype is narrowly defined enough to suggest some abilities (holy powers granted by god), and a good game designer can do the rest.  The current paladin is functional.  Another edition or two and it'll be just about right.</blockquote>

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