Pathfinder 2's Armor & A Preview of the Paladin!

It was a long bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and I sent most of it in the (rare) sun eating BBQ; there were two big Pathfinder 2 blog posts which went up in the meantime. The first dealt with armour and shields; the other was our first look at the new Paladin class!

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• Armor now affects Touch AC; each has a different bonus for AD and TAC.
  • Studded leather +2 AC, +0 TAC
  • Chain shirt +2 AC, +1 TAC, noisy
• Armor has traits, such as "noisy".
• Armor has a Dex mod cap to AC, penalties to STR/Dex/Con skill checks, a Speed penalty, and a Bulk value.
• Potency Runes -- Items can be enhanced with potency runes.
  • Bonuses to attack rolls, increase on number of damage dice (weapons)
  • Bonus to AC, TAC, and saving throws (armor)
  • Example studded leather with +3 armor potency rune gives +5 AC, +3 TAC, and +3 to your saves.
  • Potency runes can be upgraded.
• Shields -- requires an action to use and gain an AC and TAC bonus for one round.
• Other gear -- gear has quality levels (poor -2, expert +1, master +2)
• Interact -- this is a new action, used for grabbing objects, opening doors, drawing weapons, etc.

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• Paladins! Apparently the most contentious class.
• Core rules have lawful good paladins only (others may appear in other products)
• Paladin's Code -- paladins must follow their code, or lose their Spell Point pool and righteous ally class feature.
• Oaths are feats and include Fiendsbane Oath (constant damage to fiends, block their dimensional travel)
• Class features and feats --
  • Retributive strike (1st level) -- counterattacks and enfeebles a foe
  • Lay on hands (1st level) -- single action healing spell which also gives a one-round AC bonus
  • Divine Grace (2nd level) -- saving throw boost
  • Righteous ally (3rd level) -- house a holy spirit in a weapon or steed
  • Aura of Courage (4th level) -- reduce the frightened condition
  • Attack of Opportunity (6th level) -- presumably the basic AoO action
  • Second Ally (8th level) -- gain a second righteous ally
  • Aura of Righteousness (14th level) -- resist evil damage
  • Hero's defiance (19th level) -- keep standing at 0 HP
• Litanies -- single action spells, verbal, last one round.
  • Litany of righteousness -- weakens enemy to your allies' attacks
  • Litany against sloth -- slows the enemy, costing reactions or actions

[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[Yaarel]

Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.

For example, laws that favor the wealthy, or legitimize slavery (or insufficient wage, or no medical insurance, or whatever), or persecute gay people, or silence religious people, or whatever. Especially when such laws are ‘normal’, it can take Lawful Good communities tens of centuries to even begin to *understand* how some of these laws might be ... ungood.

So, by focusing on societal expectations rather than on individual needs, Lawful Good can behave as an ignorant arrogant villain.

 

[D1Tremere]

I just have tp clarify, in your example are you saying that saving either one life or five lives is an evil act which would cause a Paladin to fall?

Or are you saying that deliberately pushing an innocent in front of trolley be an evil act even though you intended to save five people?

Because I remember a scene in a Spiderman movie where Spiderman literally throws himself in front of a train to save everyone on it rather then trying to throw anyone else in the way. Could we ask our Paladins to do any less?

Not sure if serious, but...I'm saying that saving one or five is simply an act. The good or evil of it is determined by those who interpret the results, and the particular moral philosophy they apply (along with how far down the chin of consequences they look). In the case of the Paladin, their god's interpretation is the only one that matters (lest they lose their class identity).

 

[Yaarel]

It is probably more efficient to organise the funding, building and staffing of an orphanage to help a large number of orphans but is it more good then finding a loving family that would raise an orphan as their own child?

In my view, your orphan scenario is the essence of the debate between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good.

Maybe it is fair to characterize the debate as: breadth of Good (Lawful) versus depth of Good (Chaotic)

 

[pemerton]

What does it matter to a Paladin if everyone else thinks they are a fool when they know they are right?

I'm more thinking about the player's relationship to the GM, than the PC's relationship to other characters within the fiction.

If the GM - or the game system that the GM is administering - takes as a premise that it is impossible to fully realise the good while adhering to lawfulness, then the paladin player knows that s/he has already lost, and that his/her PC's aspirations are hopeless.

Chaotic Good believes Lawful Good falls short of the measure of Good. Chaotic Good makes excellent points in its case against Lawful Good. Law can do great harm, and conformity can be deeply evil − and for the Lawful Good character these excesses of Law are an ongoing temptation.

Yes, CG believes that LG falls short. And vice versa. LG also believes that NG falls short - if they didn't, they would all convert!

Hence why I don't like a framing of the alignment system that seems to take as a premise that NG is in fact correct (ie that achieving the Good sometimes requires abandoning or rejecting sociality, hierarchy, stable community, etc).

EDIT:

Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.

For example, laws that favor the wealthy, or legitimize slavery (or insufficient wage, or no medical insurance, or whatever), or persecute gay people, or silence religious people, or whatever. Especially when such laws are ‘normal’, it can take Lawful Good communities tens of centuries to even begin to *understand* how some of these laws might be ... ungood.

So, by focusing on societal expectations rather than on individual needs, Lawful Good can behave as an ignorant arrogant villain.

I think this post either takes as a premise, or counts as an argument for, the claim that LG is not fully good.

Now that may be true or it may be false (though I think it's against board rules to get into an argument about that). What I'm saying is that, if the alignment system is meant to be viable, I think it has to be neutral as to any such premise or argument. So it can't be defined or presented in such terms.

So if, in play, some cleric of Tritherion runs your argument against my paladin, that's fine and grist for the roleplaying mill. But if the GM or the game system asserts your argument, then that would make me wonder why I'm bothering to play a paladin in that game, when the system already takes for granted that I (and my character) have failed.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm more thinking about the player's relationship to the GM, than the PC's relationship to other characters within the fiction.

If the GM - or the game system that the GM is administering - takes as a premise that it is impossible to fully realise the good while adhering to lawfulness, then the paladin player knows that s/he has already lost, and that his/her PC's aspirations are hopeless.

I'd argue that fighting hopeless battles, even against the game system, is part of the appeal of playing a Paladin...provided that your DM is interested in indulging you. Too often DMs are interested in enforcing hard mechanical penalties which you've already violated by simply existing. That's not fun to play against.

It's why, for example, my favorite paladin ever was a tiefling (and a rather demonic looking one at that). Their whole life was about fighting that uphill, in-the-snow, both-ways battle, surrounded on all sides. It was terribly fun. It's like playing Captain America. BUT, it was fun because the DM was willing to indulge me, and wasn't looking for excuses to screw me over and take my pally-powers.

It was also 4E, which had an obviously looser alignment system.

BUT, this is something the rules should make clear: Even if fighting uphill battles is what being a Paladin is all about, the DM should be advised to challenge the Paladin with adversity not simply put them in impossible situations. Too many DMs use their personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin in game​ has actually sworn to uphold.

 

[pemerton]

I'd argue that fighting hopeless battles, even against the game system, is part of the appeal of playing a Paladin

Battles that are hopeless in the sense of the odds being against you are fine, and part of the archetype.

But struggling to prove that 2+2=5, when the GM and the system take standard arithmetic for granted (2+2=4) just seems silly. The character might be endearing in some fashion, but ultimately is a fool, isn't s/he?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Oh. You mean the nomenclature of ‘True Good’. This is just an extension of the D&D-ism ‘True Neutral’, instead of saying ‘Neutral Neutral’, that is in between Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral. True refers to the first kind of Neutral. Under the influence of this D&D-ism, True Good is construed as being in between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good.

Nobody except you uses "true" this way. The term remains "neutral good", as it has been since Gary Gygax first wrote it. When you use your own idiosyncratic terminology, that only exacerbates the appearance that you are talking about your own system that you have made up, as opposed to a grounded interpretation of the system the game presents. Which makes this conversation a matter of apples and oranges.

Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.

This is called a strawman argument. You are presenting a weak and flawed version of the position you are criticizing, rather than making a good-faith attempt to understand a robust version that might actually be defended by a serious advocate of the position (i.e., a paladin).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

It was also 4E, which had an obviously looser alignment system.

So loose it managed to misplace almost half of the alignments!

BUT, this is something the rules should make clear: Even if fighting uphill battles is what being a Paladin is all about, the DM should be advised to challenge the Paladin with adversity not simply put them in impossible situations. Too many DMs use their personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin in game​ has actually sworn to uphold.

I'd agree with this, although it's a tough tightrope to walk. The DM is the final arbiter of what is good and evil in the world, after all. So at some point, the DM is going to define what "the laws and goodness the paladin has actually sworn to uphold" actually are. Thus, it's a matter of being consistent to that standard rather than arbitrary. Which seems like a pretty reasonable exercise, because, y'know, lawful.

 

[Shasarak]

Not sure if serious, but...I'm saying that saving one or five is simply an act. The good or evil of it is determined by those who interpret the results, and the particular moral philosophy they apply (along with how far down the chin of consequences they look). In the case of the Paladin, their god's interpretation is the only one that matters (lest they lose their class identity).

Well the results really are immaterial, it is the action that counts. If you act to save one person when you could have acted to save five people then your action is still good. If you sacrifice one innocent to save five then your action is still evil.

I dont think I would take anyone seriously who suggested that it is an evil act to save a baby that turned out to be a mass murderer when they grew up because you did not look far enough down the chain of consequences.

 

[pemerton]

Too many DMs use their personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin in game​ has actually sworn to uphold.

The DM is the final arbiter of what is good and evil in the world, after all.

This moves the discussion into treacherous terrain!

I'm personally not a big fan of GM-adjudicated alignment, and so take a different approach from TheCosmicKid's. That probably puts me in a minority among posters in this thread.