D&D 5E Paladin, How Are You Righteous?

Your paladin is a knight renowned for courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak. You do what is right no matter the cost. But why? And how do you show your righteousness?

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Why would a person put a moral code ahead of their own safety and comfort? You don’t have to be a paladin to do so. Here are some ideas to consider. Keep in mind a paladin is unlikely to feel they measure up to their own standards and constantly strive to improve.

• You serve a higher cause. You know you are flawed and can’t measure up to the standards of your cause but you believe in that cause and advancing it. The cause is bigger than you are and matters more. You pursue justice for the weak, honor toward the civilized, and courage in battle against the enemies of your cause and your higher power.
• Innocents matter more than you. Your beliefs lead you to put others, especially the weak and helpless, ahead of yourself. You live to serve and protect. You may work closely with a village or town to keep its residents safe from enemies outside and within the settlement itself.
• The weak need protecting. You are strong when it comes to fighting. Those who can’t easily protect themselves need you to stand in the gap. You prefer to take the fight to the enemy and serve on distant frontiers so those back home live in safety. A paladin in hell fits this description.
• You know evil and it must be defeated. Evil manifests as murder, lying, stealing, the taking of another’s freedom without just cause, breaking oaths, and showing disrespect for the higher power you serve. Some evil can be confronted with words, others with deeds, and in some cases steel is needed.

How does your paladin show her righteousness? This line must be carefully walked so as to not stray into self-righteousness (being right because you say you are). As a paladin, perhaps the best way to display righteousness is through action and not through talking.

• You never back down from evil. If you see soldiers abusing an innocent peasant, a rich man stealing from a poor man, or a knight murdering innocents you intervene. Those soldiers might outnumber you, that rich man may be your benefactor, and that knight might be your liege lord. It doesn’t matter. You stand against evil no matter what.
• You are kind and gentle with those weaker than you. The smaller and more humble the person, the more you show respect and offer aid. You will give them shelter, gold, your possessions, your protection, fight monsters preying on them, whatever they need.
• You give alms to the poor, protect widows and orphans, stand up for beggars and serfs, listen to those in need, and champion the cause of the downtrodden. Your needs always come last. You defend against bandits, those in power who are corrupt, and other oppressors which might include tyrannical dragons and other monsters.
• You heal the sick and diseased, provide food for the hungry, visit prisoners to offer comfort and food and hope in your higher power, protect the weak, and provide shelter for the homeless. While your adventures take you into the wilds, you always spend the gold you recover and the powers you acquire on the needy whenever you can.
• You believe that each individual person has equal value and is made in the image of a higher power. You work tirelessly to abolish slavery, to elevate persons in minority groups, and oppose laws and practices that take innocent life and freedom. You will fight any evil that takes life without just cause and treads on freedom.

Being a paladin is not easy, especially if your best friends like to kill and loot. You may find it works best to act on your beliefs more, talk less, and really listen to where those who oppose you are coming from. Only when innocent life and freedom is threatened do you take up the sword for your cause and in the name of your higher power and bring the fight to the enemy.

 

[Anoth]

Conquest most assuredly does not. Neither does the Purple Dragon Knight, who serves the Crown above all (unless the crown happens to be good).

Splat books. Gotcha.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

have you read the oaths. I don’t think so. Maybe an oath breaker. But even vengeance has an oath that is a good alignment

1 ) I don't think you have. Conquest certainly doesn't suggest "good" (although it doesn't preclude it).

2) Any penalties for breaking oaths are purely at DM discretion.

3) It's quite possible to stick to the letter of an oath whist acting in a manor contrary to the spirit of the oath.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Purple Dragon Knight is a fighter subclass. You are probably thinking of Oath of the Crown, which serves the state, right or wrong.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

have you read the oaths. I don’t think so. Maybe an oath breaker. But even vengeance has an oath that is a good alignment

He was saying that you can, not that you must. You can easily play a Paladin as a trigger-happy bigoted vigilante and not be outright punished for it by the rules. But you can just as easily play a Paladin as the classical righteous knight in shining armour and also not be punished by the rules for doing so. Of course, both come with in-game roleplaying consequences, and potentially table conflict if you're being an abrasive blowhard about it.

 

[Eltab]

"You believe that each individual person has equal value and is made in the image of a higher power. You work tirelessly to abolish slavery, to elevate persons in minority groups, and oppose laws and practices that take innocent life and freedom. You will fight any evil that takes life without just cause and treads on freedom."

What? In what world are Paladins not genocidal, Spanish-Inquisition-style, smug bastards wielding rapiers, and generally being too trigger-happy?

In my experience, if a PC group sees an opportunity to free slaves or disrespect slaveowners, the Official Classic LG Paladin will be left choking on their dust.

 

[billd91]

• You believe that each individual person has equal value and is made in the image of a higher power.

Honestly, that tenet is more chaotic than lawful. A LG character could certainly believe in the justice of social hierarchies, perhaps even believe they are superior to more egalitarian social structures because they can provide mutually beneficial obligations - such as peasants contributing part of their labor to support a military class for who then protects them. They would just work to keep them honest and non-exploitive.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Your paladin is a knight renowned for courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak. You do what is right no matter the cost. But why? And how do you show your righteousness?

I show righteousness by being courageous, honorable, just, ready to help the weak, and do what is right despite the personal cost. Why do I do that? Because I am compelled to do so by personal conviction.

Honestly, it's not complicated and never has been... until people make it complicated (though I've never understood why they want it that way).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

until people make it complicated (though I've never understood why they want it that way).

Because complicated characters are interesting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In my experience, if a PC group sees an opportunity to free slaves or disrespect slaveowners, the Official Classic LG Paladin will be left choking on their dust.

Indeed. In a society where slavery is legal it's going to be the chaotic characters who are smashing the chains.

Which is not to say that a paladin can't be a chaotic liberator, 5e allows for that.

 

[Eltab]

Which is not to say that a paladin can't be a chaotic liberator, 5e allows for that.

I liked the 3e alternatives Paladin of Freedom (CG) and Paladin of Tyranny (LE) but could not wrap my head around the CE paladin (whatever it was named).