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

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[MechaTarrasque]

And exactly because social organisation is not always the best way to promote 'goodness' is why LG could never be the best good.

**Just dont tell a LG person that, there is probably a law against pointing out the flaws in the system (for your own good of course)**

I think it depends on "best"--the argument at the heart of LG is that it is the best over the long term, as opposed to the "random acts of kindness" of NG and the "I will tear down the evil in front of me and deal with the consequences later" of CG (now that I write that down, a tendency to "deal with the consequences later" seems like a good operational definition of a chaotic individual). I would say LG's goal is to set up organizations (or to perfect/fix existing organizations) to "do good." NG and CG types might (rightly) point out that even bureaucracies meant to "do good" tend to... dehumanize is probably a little strong, but reduce the agency of the recipients of that good, and it is not that long of a step from reducing the agency to dehumanizing. It is just the nature of efficiency.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Who exacly is granting or revoking a paladin's powers?
Is it from a god? Or from their own personal conviction?

Either way, I don't see how it need to be lawful or good.

It's from a god, and it needs to be lawful or good because the powers they grant are explicitly designed for lawful and good purposes. Asmodeus isn't going to hand out healing and fiend-slaying to his most-devoted followers, and have them go around healing people and smiting fiends, because that isn't his agenda; that's the agenda of Iomedae and Sarenrae.

If it was possible to grant yourself magical powers through your own personal conviction, then the world would be an even weirder place than it already is; moreover, there would be no reason for those powers to manifest in the abilities of the paladin class, rather than the sorcerer class.

 

[mellored]

It's from a god, and it needs to be lawful or good because the powers they grant are explicitly designed for lawful and good purposes. Asmodeus isn't going to hand out healing and fiend-slaying to his most-devoted followers, and have them go around healing people and smiting fiends, because that isn't his agenda; that's the agenda of Iomedae and Sarenrae.

Iomedae does not have healing domain.
Sarenrae is neutral good.
Pharasma has healing, but is neutral.
Milani has healing, but is chaotic good.
Sekhmet has healing and war, but is chaotic neutral.

In fact, I don't see any lawful good god who has healing domain...

Also, Asmodeus wouldn't have any issue with you kililng fiends.

If it was possible to grant yourself magical powers through your own personal conviction, then the world would be an even weirder place than it already is; moreover, there would be no reason for those powers to manifest in the abilities of the paladin class, rather than the sorcerer class.

By the same token, if they are granted by a god, there would be the cleric class.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Yeah, I admit that was a poor choice of words for what I meant: getting rid of additive boni is too high a price to pay for casters being able to hit with ray spells (for people who like the versimilitude of 3.x).

For spells that really do deal damage to anything they touch, there are still ones that use a Dex save rather than an attack roll, like disintegrate. It's just that the rules now assume armor is effective against stuff like bolts of fire and rays of acid. Which makes sense to me.

 

[D1Tremere]

Who exacly is granting or revoking a paladin's powers?
Is it from a god? Or from their own personal conviction?

Either way, I don't see how it need to be lawful or good.

In Pathfinder it is a god. The God doesn't need to be Lawful or Good (which are subjective), it defines what Lawful and good are for a Paladin (who must be). Different Gods can embody Lawful and Good differently, and so their Paladins may differ. At the end of the day, their own god is the final arbitrator of Lawful and Good for them (though certain traits of Law and Good alignment are necessary for one to ideologically be a Paladin, such as devotion to a code and self sacrificing.)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In fact, I don't see any lawful good god who has healing domain...

You don't need to be a lawful good god of healing in order to have paladins. You just need an agenda centered around helping people and/or killing fiends.

Also, Asmodeus wouldn't have any issue with you kililng fiends.

It's really not his style, though.

By the same token, if they are granted by a god, there would be the cleric class.

At least in theory, clerics actually know what they're doing. They have to understand all of the theology and whatnot, which is why they're wisdom-based. Paladins just need to act on it. It's kind of like the difference between the wizard and the sorcerer, in a way, except all of their powers are granted by an external source which can take away those powers if they think you don't deserve them.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

A chaotic character wouldn't want to enslave themselves to a power that both dictates to them how they must act, and holds the cords to their class features as reward/punishment. Thy would obviously be free to follow whoever they like, but to allow another to subsume that much of their personal agency would clash with Pathfinder's definition of the alignment as best I can tell.

You seem to be ruling out the possibility of chaotic deities and religions in general. But Pathfinder definitely has those. Presumably chaotic followers of chaotic gods conceptualize their faith in a way other than "enslaving themselves".

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In Pathfinder it is a god. The God doesn't need to be Lawful or Good (which are subjective), it defines what Lawful and good are for a Paladin (who must be).

Law and good are not subjective in Pathfinder. They are defined independently of deities. Furthermore, the paladin's code is defined independently of deities. The paladin's requisite association with a god is more likely due to a stricter definition of "divine magic" than WotC-era D&D has allowed (see also: the Forgotten Realms) than to a philosophical commitment to moral subjectivism. Imagine a deity of indiscriminate misery and mayhem trying to make paladins of its followers by saying they were lawful good. Would they match the book's definition of lawful good? No. Would their behavior line up with the book's paladin's code? No.

 

[mellored]

You don't need to be a lawful good god of healing in order to have paladins. You just need an agenda centered around helping people and/or killing fiends.

I'm not sure why you need a god for that.

It also sounds a lot like a ranger with favored enemy.

It's kind of like the difference between the wizard and the sorcerer, in a way, except all of their powers are granted by an external source which can take away those powers if they think you don't deserve them.

Fair... if not a very satisfactory answer.

Though, there are evil clerics.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not sure why you need a god for that.

It also sounds a lot like a ranger with favored enemy.

I agree. You could replace the paladin class entirely with a ranger that took fiends as a favored enemy, just as you could replace the druid class entirely by taking a cleric with nature-type domains. Paladins and druids only really make sense in the context of a pseudo-Medieval European setting where monotheism is the norm. They lose something when you try and transfer them to Faerun or Golarion, which is why we're left with the paladin being the way that it is.