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]​

 

[D1Tremere]

When it comes to alignment, I don't take that approach. I treat it as a table matter.

That seems untenable. you can't have a game devolve into an argument on moral philosophy every time a character exorcises agency (unless that is what your game is into). Almost any action a player takes can be justified moralistically in one way or another, so I don't see how that would work in mechanical situations (such as with the Paladin).

 

[Gammadoodler]

The Chaotic Good paladin cares about speed limits, for the sake of self preservation. But couldnt care less about them when rushing a woman in labor to the hospital.

Obviously, the Chaotic Good paladin doesnt care about uniforms. Heh, unless it is part of some ironic commentary about the harmfulness of conformity.

Chaotic Good - the alignment of choice for safety paladins everywhere. I'm assuming one of the tenets of the code is 'Hold your horses'.

 

[Sunseeker]

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?

Well yes, but I don't think that's the kind of battle the Paladin usually fights.

The uphill battle is usually against unreasonable burdens. Like, you catch your friend stealing from the party, friend apologizes, returns the item, but that's not how the law works, the law says he has to go to court, go to jail. The Paladin is only the enforcer, not the judge and jury, so the Paladin has the choice between letting the criminal go (breaking the law) or packing up their stuff in the middle of a dungeon and attempting to escort a party member all the way back to town. If he does the former, he loses his powers, if he doesn't do the latter (because it's absurd), he loses his powers.

These are not unusual situations for paladins to be placed in.

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

And was better all around for it.

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.

Ideally the DM should be consistent in keeping his rulings in line with the rules he already made up for the setting.
Historically speaking: this isn't usually what happens.
And few DMs are good at adjudicating alignments from the perspective of multiple gods.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Honest question, outside of systems where classes are tied to alignment and maybe certain spells, how much alignment adjudication is actually happening in people's games? My direct experience is pretty much limited to 5E, and I can only think of one time when it's come up in a dungeon puzzle, and even then the DM just used whatever was on folks' character sheet.

Edit: If it only really comes up in these specific corner case-type situations, but is so contentious when it does, what's the value?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

While I could be wrong, in practice, I suspect paladins' typical "higher laws" are more likely to be positive than prohibitive in nature. Things like "Value life, help people, speak truly, etc." aren't really about defining inappropriate behavior so much as (broadly) describing good behavior. Perhaps "higher laws" are different in other games though, and contain exhaustive lists of prohibited actions or specific instructions for the appropriate action to take in any circumstance.

You make a thought-provoking distinction, and I think you're right, most positive laws are going to be more open to interpretation for when they are violated than prohibitive laws. But more open to interpretation is not the same at totally open to interpretation. A paladin would not be able to "higher law" their way out of a secular law forbidding cold-blooded murder, because such a law is pretty clearly "valuing life". And some positive laws are just equivalent to prohibitive laws: for instance, "speak truly" and "don't lie" are two sides of the same coin.

Even if that were the case though, like any other laws, they are going to be subject to the interpretation of, at a minimum, the paladin and whatever force/deity/whatever grants that paladin power (but realistically, also of the players at the table and the GM). As in your quote from Pathfinder "[Lawful good characters] fight to abolish or change laws they deem unjust."

Well, paladins are a bit of a special case because they have direct(ish) access to the goodness-source. Most lawful good characters have to use their own judgment simply because, y'know, they're like everybody else there.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There are no good/evil acts in an objective sense...

Moral philosophy abounds with debate over that claim, too.

To put it mildly.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Edit: If it only really comes up in these specific corner case-type situations, but is so contentious when it does, what's the value?

It adds to the portrayal of a world where good and evil, law and chaos, are actual cosmic forces in conflict. In Tolkien, for instance, it is more thematic and evocative to say that Gandalf is good and Sauron is evil than that Gandalf simply has a unfavorable opinion of Sauron's foreign policy decisions. Not all campaigns are like this, of course, and if yours isn't, that's perfectly fine, there's a reason 5E made alignment such a modular system (Pathfinder is lagging a bit there). But in the right hands and the right setting, it's a useful tool.

 

[D1Tremere]

Moral philosophy abounds with debate over that claim, too.

To put it mildly.

Not really. Not unless you turn to theology.

 

[D1Tremere]

You make a thought-provoking distinction, and I think you're right, most positive laws are going to be more open to interpretation for when they are violated than prohibitive laws. But more open to interpretation is not the same at totally open to interpretation. A paladin would not be able to "higher law" their way out of a secular law forbidding cold-blooded murder, because such a law is pretty clearly "valuing life". And some positive laws are just equivalent to prohibitive laws: for instance, "speak truly" and "don't lie" are two sides of the same coin.

Well, paladins are a bit of a special case because they have direct(ish) access to the goodness-source. Most lawful good characters have to use their own judgment simply because, y'know, they're like everybody else there.

Most have laws "valuing life," but manage to justify killing under how you define the circumstances.
in group-out group (tribalism) mechanics usually have clear rules about murder (in-group killing) that do not apply to others (out-group killing). Add to that complications on the meaning of life (it is ok to kill plants, animals, orks, but not half-orks, Etc.).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Not really. Not unless you turn to theology.

Moral relativism.

"Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it."

If you have been unaware that this is a live question in the field -- indeed, perhaps the live question in the field -- then I don't know what else to say.