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]​

 

[mellored]

"Lawful" means something quite different in English-language legal parlance than it does in D&D. It may not be a crime to carry out the sentence*, but is it in accordance with the ideals on which the law rests and the purposes it serves? I think not. The whole scenario is predicated on a failure of the law to accurately determine guilt and innocence. A person sworn to uphold the law, whether an American lawyer or a Waterdhavian paladin, surely ought to do everything in their power to correct the error, not perpetuate it.

*And if, e.g., a prosecutor has evidence establishing that a defendant is innocent but withholds the evidence and prosecutes them anyway, then of course that is a crime.

I'll throw you a different scenario then.

The law states that anyone who enters's the queen's bath area uninvited will be beheaded.
Some orphan throws his ball over a fence and climbs over the fence to get it, unknowingly entering into the queen's bath area. The paladin on guard catches that kid.

Does the paladin kill the orphan or not?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'll throw you a different scenario then.

The law states that anyone who enters's the queen's bath area uninvited will be beheaded.
Some orphan throws his ball over a fence and climbs over the fence to get it, unknowingly entering into the queen's bath area. The paladin on guard catches that kid.

Does the paladin kill the orphan or not?

The paladin sees the loophole and invites the kid to retrieve his ball, then lets him leave. They then go to the queen and say, "Your majesty, something terrible almost happened today. Let's fix this law."

 

[mellored]

The paladin sees the loophole and invites the kid to retrieve his ball, then lets him leave. They then go to the queen and say, "Your majesty, something terrible almost happened today. Let's fix this law."

Too bad Int is a dump stat for paladins.

 

[Zansy]

I think most people would agree that what makes a Paladin a Paladin is their adherence to an ideal. To some people, that ideal is the moral philosophy of Law and Good. To others, that ideal is the word of the god/gods the Paladin follows. To others, it’s a code of conduct, divorced from a particular alignment or deity. That’s part of why they’re so controversial as a class. They are defined by strict adherence to something, but everyone has different ideas about what that something ought to be, and a Paladin who strictly adhered to one person’s something is necessarily not adhering as strictly as they could be to another.

A sound, relatively objective observation. I would like to expand on that, as I think that the amount of different things a paladin must adhere to is also under controversy. For example, I think that the paladin adhering to his alignment, his deity's philosophies, his deity's anathema, and a universal code of conduct on top of it all, with only the deity being somewhat of a choice - is overkill and unstable when one error while consulting your (basically paizo's-) apparently universal judgment could cost you your class features.

(EDIT: another controversial point waiting to happen: how do you prioritize those different categories of restrictions? In the event of hypothetical conflict, Is the code of conduct more or less important than your deity's anathema? And to what extent? )

The current paladin prioritizes good over law, but I think you should be able to make more choices of what's the most important to your own order of paladins, like have the right to rank your code of conduct for yourself (but must stay consistent to your own hierarchy), or have the option(heck - even an optional rule!) to deviate from at least one of these restrictions (alignment/deity/CoC) without being judged as "not a paladin".

That being said, some others here prefer that the paladin had more things to commit to, some people thrive creatively on limitation, though I really don't see why that template of limitations couldn't fit within a bigger net of options.

Finally, to say that ALL paladins adhere to this code of conduct, (or even all LG paladins do) in that very order of priorities is naive and absurd. Even if you are restricted to being Lawful and good, even if it is "just for the playtest", there are some people who are Lawful first and Good second, and not just vice versa ("GL" ) which is what this code of conduct is geared at. Paizo's hierarchy of tenets is for GL paladins, which is even more specific than your normal Lawful good because it's specifically the belief that good always trumps law. To paizo's credit, they're on to something when they say that some tenets can be more important than others, but what do they care so much about how my specific paladin at the table prioritizes those rules?

our GL paladins follow their given alignment. CoC dictates our biggest priorities are so and so, in this order, uniformly, unfailingly, and universally, as paladins. Our deities tell us even more things we must never, ever do. One false move on any of these fronts will cost these paladins big. Even if the designers are trying to avoid moral dilemmas that ruin the Paladin's day, the misjudgments of their efforts will likely result in them making it exceptionally difficult for themselves, and for everyone else to adhere to all of it, and all the easier to put together new or additional moral dilemmas that conflict between those types of restrictions. the more limitations they put in, that stack on each other like crude patchwork, the more holes consumers are bound to find within it. Players and GMs alike are going to find the holes in that complex patchwork of paladin rules, and strike the chink in the paladins' Legendary armor where it hurts them most.

 

[Charlaquin]

That still doesn't answer the question.

What makes a paladin different from just a fighter who swearth an oath to some ideal/god/code/ect...
Also, why can't a wizards, rogues, or bard swear the same oath?


IMO, just make all the oaths into feats. Let anyone take them.

Oath of the Paladin: Lawful Good
Oath of the Blackguard: Chaotic Evil
Oath of the Bushido: Lawful Neutral
Oath of the Pacifist: Neutral Good
Oath of Nocticula: Chaotic Neutral
ect...

Sure, that’d be cool. But I think what you’re getting at here is less an issue with the Paladin specifically and more an issue of class design philosophy. You could also ask what makes a ranger different from a fighter who trains in survival skills, or what makes a gunslinger different from a fighter who uses guns. Until D&D/Pathfinder makes a decision about what constitutes a class, these cases are going to keep popping up where one class that is very narrowly defined fits with the archetype of another class that’s very broadly defined. I’d be all for a D&D with a few broad classes and a lot of specific options to refine them, like your suggestion here. Unfortunately, I think it’s too far afield of what has grown to be D&D’s brand identity. 4e failed because it didn’t “feel like D&D. A lot of the complaints about the PF2 previews revolve around it not “feeling like Pathfinder.”

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.

once again -
1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.

Amen. I never understood the POV that Paladins are bound by this tight code since they are so devout, but the Priests who channel the deities power to do miracles has a lot more leeway. Personally I like the LG only Paladin, I just never understood why the clerics were viewed as halfassed faith-wise by comparison.

 

[Zansy]

Amen. I never understood the POV that Paladins are bound by this tight code since they are so devout, but the Priests who channel the deities power to do miracles has a lot more leeway. Personally I like the LG only Paladin, I just never understood why the clerics were viewed as halfassed faith-wise by comparison.

Even if it was unintentionally so, and even if you're not against the paladin being exclusively LG, I thank you for illustrating my point in my previous post, that I'm not the only one with controversy over how many different things a paladin must adhere to with full devotion. Having you Compare it to my earlier point about clerics following less rules than paladins not only strengthens that point, but shows me that I'm consistent with my opinions on the matter. Thank you.

 

[pemerton]

If the paladin in the game is meant to emulate the archetype found in idealised and romanticised histories and stories of knighthood, then certain contemporary ideals and practices need to be excluded.

For instance, issues of efficiency and expedience are very important in most contemporary contexts. And practices or requirements that are pointless tend to be rejected or reformed. But this is not consistent with the ideals of paladinhood. Honour, thruthfulness and forthrightness are paladin ideals, not expedience. (I therefore think it's a mistake to take the prohibition on poison use out of a paldin's code. Poisons are expedient, but dishonourable.)

Likewise I don't think paladins are law-reformers. The whole idea of law reform is a contemporary one. A paladin who thinks that a purported legal requirement is abhorrent or unjust is going to try and show that it is not really a legal requirement. Or if the concern is that applying the law in this particular instance would be unjust, the paladin will present an argument as to why it ought not to be applied.

In LotR, Aragorn remits the death penalty against Beregond for valour, and because he acted out of love - and the sentence of exile is also the bestowal of an honourable office newly created.

In [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION]'s example of the orphan who inadvertantly enters the forbidden area of the palace, the paladin might take the child before the queen and seek (or even just expect) mercy to be granted. Depending on the tone of the game, maybe mercy is granted by way of the child instead being ordered to enter the queen's service. (Again, depending on tone, if the orphan is a boy this might mean entering the queen's servicd as a eunuch.) Or, if the paladin has authority to enter the forbidden area, maybe the paladin facilitates the grant of mercy by taking the child into his/her service - thus rendering the child no longer a forbidden person.

I think honouring the law - which includes treating the law in a way that renders it worthy of being honoured - is in keeping with a conception of paladinhood in a way that wriggling through loopholes and reforming the law is not.

 

[Sunseeker]

If the paladin in the game is meant to emulate the archetype found in idealised and romanticised histories and stories of knighthood, then certain contemporary ideals and practices need to be excluded.

For instance, issues of efficiency and expedience are very important in most contemporary contexts. And practices or requirements that are pointless tend to be rejected or reformed. But this is not consistent with the ideals of paladinhood. Honour, thruthfulness and forthrightness are paladin ideals, not expedience. (I therefore think it's a mistake to take the prohibition on poison use out of a paldin's code. Poisons are expedient, but dishonourable.)

Likewise I don't think paladins are law-reformers. The whole idea of law reform is a contemporary one. A paladin who thinks that a purported legal requirement is abhorrent or unjust is going to try and show that it is not really a legal requirement. Or if the concern is that applying the law in this particular instance would be unjust, the paladin will present an argument as to why it ought not to be applied.

In LotR, Aragorn remits the death penalty against Beregond for valour, and because he acted out of love - and the sentence of exile is also the bestowal of an honourable office newly created.

In [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION]'s example of the orphan who inadvertantly enters the forbidden area of the palace, the paladin might take the child before the queen and seek (or even just expect) mercy to be granted. Depending on the tone of the game, maybe mercy is granted by way of the child instead being ordered to enter the queen's service. (Again, depending on tone, if the orphan is a boy this might mean entering the queen's servicd as a eunuch.) Or, if the paladin has authority to enter the forbidden area, maybe the paladin facilitates the grant of mercy by taking the child into his/her service - thus rendering the child no longer a forbidden person.

I think honouring the law - which includes treating the law in a way that renders it worthy of being honoured - is in keeping with a conception of paladinhood in a way that wriggling through loopholes and reforming the law is not.

Isn't that sort of adding insult to injury, not only must paladins be LG, but they must also be rules-lawyers as well?

 

[pemerton]

Isn't that sort of adding insult to injury, not only must paladins be LG, but they must also be rules-lawyers as well?

I'm going to risk internet idiocy and take this literally when maybe it's a joke!

I think searching for loopholes is "rules-lawyering". I think identifying the spirit of the law, the thing about it that makes it important and worth respecting - in otherwords, finding its goodness - is what romanticised knightly Aragorn-esque lawful good is all about.