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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 2727748" data-attributes="member: 2067">In part, that's becaue clerics are to serve as the Paladin's concience and the Paladin's eyes into the Unseen World. Paladins are the sword and Clerics are the arm that aims it. A Paladin trying to take on evil without a priestly buddy to get his back is only half the message, and is even MORE likely to fall and fall hard because of his inability to discern the Truth of Things like a cleric can.For a paladin to think he is somehow better than his fellow Man (or Dwarf) is a greater hubris. Every mortal being is Fallen. The Paladin distinguishes himself by his efforts to not be, and gains power from his efforts to not be.My interpretation says the Paladin is in a very difficult catch-22, and that this is entirely intentional. The fact is, every Good person does bad things. And every Lawful person breaks order. The Paladin, in this respect, is no different from any other sentient being: there are some situations where the ideal cannot be upheld, because the world is real and the ideal is not. There will be times when the Paladin cannot think first, there will be times when the Paladin is decieved, there will be times when the Paladin has no control, there will be times when the Paladin kills orc babies or refuses to offer a demon redemption. In short, there will be times where the Paladin CANNOT adhere to his own high criteria. And at those times, he must show the wisdom to let the Code fall, to sacrifice his own power, to do the Right Thing. Because the Code and the Right Thing are in no way complimentary and may, in fact, be exclusive of each other in certain scenarios.The Gods aren't idiots. They realize that the Code will be broken. Codes were *made* to be broken. Those who adhere to the Code are, in effect, not obeying the Code. Putting the ideal, putting the Code above life and expedient action is a grave sin -- saving your own power at the expense of time and inaction. Not entirely. Because a feat or a spellbook doesn't represent any real moral or ethical conquest for a Fighter or a Wizard. It's just a tool to use. Losing the use of a spellbook represents no failure for the Wizard, just a run of bad luck or potentially petty DMing. It's like loosing your magic sword, or having to throw the powerful artifact away. Just the loss of a power. It's a thing.A Paladin who looses his powers has lost more than a Thing....he has lost his Tao, his Way, his Path, his God. He wanders in the Dark Wood and needs to climb the Shining Hill. Wandering through the dark wood should be expected, but a Paladin must always seek to come back out of that wood. It's not about being a better person, it's about being the same person, held to a higher standard.Milton makes it pretty clear that Lucifer only Fell because he didn't want to try and be better. "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven" is the cliche, right? That's the path of the Blackguard. The Paladin who falls, and who has no interest in that shining hill.Adam Fell, too. But Adam can come back into the good graces of God, with toil and hard work and profuse apologies. A Paladin isn't perfect, like an Angel or Jesus; nor is he unrepentant, like Lucifer. He's Adam -- he makes mistakes. And he tries to make them better.Seems a bit like splitting hairs, but Arthur was the one with hyper kingly magical juju. Galahad was a sword-boy, a fighter pure and true. One with a very strong LG alignment that he never really waivered from, but just a knight. Arthur is the King, with all the magic and divinity that royalty entails. But either way, the trope remains in effect: The Repentant Sinner is a stronger, more durable, more interesting, more versatile trope than the Flawless Icon. Paladins begin as dragon-slaying childhood heroes, but once dead orc babies come into the picture, it's time for something deeper, and the Repentant Sinner satisfies that.Eh, it just needs a little boost. So why not, I'll write a book about it. We'll see what happens. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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