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?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

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.

 

[generic]

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).

The CE Paladin is called the Paladin.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[Shadowdweller]

I find its hard for modern "moral relativists" to play a righteous holy warrior in a world of elemental evil and chaos. I have players who think a LG Paladin should be able to cut corners a lot and the ends justify the means, adventure with unsavory types, etc. They want the powers but not the ethos.

Meanwhile, subclasses like the Oath of Vengeance are explicitly built around the concept of "the ends justify the means". The 5e paladin is meant to be a chassis for a multitude of different and potentially conflicting character types, not anyone's personal concept of the One True Paladin.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Meanwhile, subclasses like the Oath of Vengeance are explicitly built around the concept of "the ends justify the means". The 5e paladin is meant to be a chassis for a multitude of different and potentially conflicting character types, not anyone's personal concept of the One True Paladin.

Sure in 5e that is totally true. But I didn't think this was a 5e specific thread and I referred to a classic LG paladin.

 

[Luce]

I personally like the Sentinel (the NG variant)[source: Drg 310].
At least according to Dragon Magazine(312), the 3e CE variant was called the Anti-Paladin.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure in 5e that is totally true. But I didn't think this was a 5e specific thread and I referred to a classic LG paladin.

There is a reason 5e dropped "the classic LG paladin" - we have all seen, and probably played, that character a million times over already. The article is about 40 years too late.

 

[WayneLigon]

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.

The biggest mistake people make in D&D is thinking that 'Lawful' means 'the laws men create'. It means the more abstract concept of 'order'.

The silly 'gotcha' of 'haha, paladin,you're in a society where slavery is legal! You have to own slaves! And rape them, too, because that is legal as well!' is just face-palming. Any GM that uses it isn't presenting a 'moral dilemma', they're spitting on the concept of someone who wants to actually do good.

Human-made law is made according to how the wind blows, and can be made by evil people as well as by good ones. Paladins will ignore human-made laws that lead to evil being done. They'll be particularly perturbed by laws that lead to evil, because laws are supposed to be the linchpin of civilization.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[Unwise]

I'm not sure my paladin is virtuous by many definitions.

My current paladin is a follower of Waukeen the Lady of Coin. He serves the Invisible Hand of the Market and is a lot like the Ferengi from Star Trek. He would think that Ayn Rand is a prophet. He is a caricature of an extreme capitalist libertarian. He believes that charity is immoral. He almost always demands payment for his services. He won't save you for free.

He will interfere for free when the people of a village pay their tithe to Waukeen. He views it like an insurance policy, if they pay their tithe, they helped pay for the paladins, therefore they can expect help.

The other times are when the market itself is under threat, such as orcish slavers stealing the local artisans, or bandits stopping travelling merchants.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

There's a character in the TV series "The Leftovers" called Matt Jamison which, in my opinion, is a good inspiration for a complex take on the Paladin. He is a righteous, well-meaning priest who tries hard to live by the moral tenets of his religion but does it in the most wrongheaded, antagonistic and self-destructive fashion imaginable.