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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jsaving" data-source="post: 5916829" data-attributes="member: 16726">The 5e team has said each class needs to clearly evoke the imagery of what that class has predominantly been throughout the lifetime of D&D.  And while some may disagree, I just don't see how the "pick a cause, any cause" paladin championed by some is a necessary or desirable way to accomplish this goal.  To me, the key distinguishing feature of the paladin -- the element of class design that immediately lets people know paladins are different -- is chivalry.  To those who don't share Gygax's love of Arthur and Charlemagne, it may seem odd or even arbitrary that a class based on such a narrow concept would exist in the core rules.  But it seems to me that if there is a reason for the paladin to exist, rather than being subsumed by the fighter/cleric, it's because of this shared devotion to chivalry.However, there's an important distinction to be made between "chivalry-based" paladins and "lawful-good-based" paladins.  Do we really want paladins to favor social order over individual freedom?  Respect the world's rulers and traditions?  Lack creativity and judge those who fall short in their duties?  Because make no mistake, if we make the leap from saying all paladins must embody chivalry to saying they must embody lawful goodness, we're pigeonholing all paladins into a much narrower personality type than was ever intended.  And we're certainly going well beyond the traditional chivalric tenets of protecting the weak, showing courage against the strong, maintaining one's sense of manners and decorum, and having the skill with arms to do what is needed.  Now, in a 1e-style setup where lawful goodness is explicitly the best and most virtuous alignment, it's understandable that paladins would then be given a LG alignment requirement.  But this idea of LG as the "best" alignment has been out of the game for many years and seems unlikely to make a reappearance in 5e.  And if LG isn't the "best" alignment any longer, then why not simply hard-code chivalry into the paladin class writeup and then give players the creative freedom to figure out how or whether their NG, LN, etc character can fit the bill?</blockquote>

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