Paladins: Why are they balanced?

[Nightfall]

*agrees that a paladin's code can be flexible depending on the god they serve and also whom they serve* I mean it's the difference in working in say NYC and then down in Miami.

 

[green slime]

It all depends on your DM. I've seen paladins like that, sure, but I also saw paladins who were able to hold their own, weren't crippled (but enriched) by their code, and got along rather well with the rest of the group.

Actually, it's often the non-paladins that cause the problems: They see a paladin, think that he's one of those stuck-up, holier-than-thou guys, and starts arguing/verbally attacking him and doing stuff of questionable morals just to spite the paladin.

Aint that the truth!

 

[green slime]

Paladin is my very favorite class to play, and in my experience, it's the other players who are the problem, not the Paladin. Most telling was a case a few years ago in a new campaign. I was playing a paladin, and we'd played for about three sessions, when a new guy came in. He looked over the party rooster, and decided that his character, for god knows what reason, would be a blackguard.

That's when the DM steps in and says:

"Really? That sounds interesting... Let me know how that goes."
*pregnant pause*
"By the way, that's the door over there. Goodbye."

 

[Nightfall]

Green,

See this is why Scarred Lands paladins have it easier. No one wants to offend the god of paladins. Torm might have that rank but rarely does he smite people. When it Corean, different story. He'll smite...via breaking your weapons/armor/forged/crafted stuff.

 

[Voadam]

Actually, that's not even true. Clerics, druids, bards, barbarians all suffer for not being rp'd properly. It's just that DM's don't enforce things with those classes. A LG cleric shoudl be pretty much IDENTICAL to a paladin in terms of code of conduct. But, most DM's are perfectly ok with the player ignoring his alignment and his class and moving along.

There are many ways to be LG. The paladin's code is not the only possible code for a LG religious warrior to have.

 

[green slime]

Green,

See this is why Scarred Lands paladins have it easier. No one wants to offend the god of paladins. Torm might have that rank but rarely does he smite people. When it Corean, different story. He'll smite...via breaking your weapons/armor/forged/crafted stuff.

I'd prefer to personally smite those new players that try to introduce something so horribly prone to intra-party strife, before they take the time to get to know the group.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I was playing a paladin, and we'd played for about three sessions, when a new guy came in. He looked over the party rooster, and decided that his character, for god knows what reason, would be a blackguard.

I can't get this, either. Beyond the fact that this would be almost surely an attempt to disrupt the game (may I remind that guy that paladins may not work together with evil characters, so unless he wants to get the rest of the party to throw out their trusted companion, he'll have a problem getting in), I can't remember playing a game where you could play both good and evil characters.

If there was a Paladin in my party, that would certainly mean that the party's more on the side of Good, so blackguards are right out. He could whine all he wanted, and in fact I would welcome any threat to leave the game - so I don't have to throw him out, just to call in on his promise.

Just curious and slightly out of context here, but has anyone else encountered a guy that goes paladin only to ex-paladinize himself so that he can go blackguard?

Or is it just this one guy I know?

I believe that one or two characters I saw (if that) had been paladins once, but at the point they entered the (higher-level) game, the transformation was already done. I never played a game where the party changed sides (good/evil) during the campaign (though that would be a nice thing), and I can't remember playing in a campaign where both were allowed at the same time (though they were one or two situations where they were practically both present - because some player would play a neutral character whose deeds were clearly evil, but the DM didn't force the AL change).

If anyone played in any of our good campaigns and had a character turn evil during the course, that character would more or less become a non-player character. He would be told that the character can no longer stay in the party and that he can either create a new one or find something else to do on saturday afternoons.

*agrees that a paladin's code can be flexible depending on the god they serve and also whom they serve* I mean it's the difference in working in say NYC and then down in Miami.

Is that like the difference between working in, say Hamburg and München? Because I never worked in those, either, and would still have no idea how it would actually be like!

 

[Hussar]

There are many ways to be LG. The paladin's code is not the only possible code for a LG religious warrior to have.

True, but, the fact that you acknowledge that a LG religious warrior should have a code is pretty telling right there. I can't really think of anything that's in the paladin's code that any LG religious type probably wouldn't follow. If anything, a priest of Corean, Heironeous, Cuthbert or any other LG warrior god would have an even more stringent code than a paladin's.

Yet, none of this is even touched on in RAW.