Pretending to be a Paladin

[Patman21967]

Instead on mixing in classes,,,pump up his use magiacl device skill, and with the help of a good GM...get some items to help him pull it off....a ring of Cure woulds perhaps.would account for the lay on hands.....etc

 

[takyris]

Fun, fun, fun. Had a great time with a "ranger" who happened to be very good at unrangerly things like picking locks and sneak-attacking.

"Should we talk to the animals?"

"Uh... no. Naw, they don't know anything. Here, my TRACKING thinks we should go this way."

"That have anything to do with the guy you just gave money to and talked with surreptitiously?"

"No."

Not my character -- I was playing a paladin at the time.

For the record, I've made great use out of that flavor text that says "Any two paladins, even from other cultures or countries, can recognize each other on sight." This guy is toast the first time he runs into an actual paladin.

Beyond that, a Fighter/Rogue would be good, a Fighter/Rogue/Bard or Fighter/Rogue/Cleric would be better. If you keep to a 1/3/1 ratio or so, class-wise, you've got a guy who's a good utility player in addition to being, ya know, sneaky and stuff...

 

[rounser]

You have to assume that the world knows about D&D classes, and the abilities and skills that come with it.
This requires a suspension of disbelief that I am not comfortable with.

It's a grey area. For instance, what if trolls existed in the real world?

You can bet your bottom dollar that people would be as interested in them as they are in man-eaters such as great cats and sharks. People would tell cautionary tales and warnings inside of a year, let alone lifetimes. They'd know at least vaguely about the whole regeneration and fire/acid thing in no time flat.

Yet D&D has no mechanism for handling the knowledge of a peasant of these creatures, let alone an adventurer (whose profession involves dealing with them). The area becomes even more grey when it involves obscure class abilities, such as one a monk gets at a certain level.

I don't really have an answer to this, but I think it's a bit of an eyebrow-raiser of an omission in a game with knowledge skills and bardic lore.

 

[Voadam]

A paladin with an 11 charisma and an 11 wisdom does not have many of the common paladin visible powers (such as lay on hands or spells) and would be poor at other ones (turning) explaining why they fail so often.

Go with a straight rogue and max use magic device so you can use the cure light wounds wand everyone expects you to be able to use (hey, its on "your" spell list). Or pick up a level of fighter and then straight rogue so you can have armor and shield and weapon proficiencies. Or forget picking those up, don't buy the proficiencies, still wear and use them and simply be bad at them. If you are in armor, throw your numerous skills into skills that are not detrimented by armor, bluff, diplomacy, disguise, knowledges, sense motive, appraise, etc.

I played a rogue whose concept was that he was lawful good and played like a paladin, he was a fencer focused character ready to battle evil bravely and serve the cause of righteousness without thought of reward. His bluff skill was all for combat feints. A rogue can make an excellent paladin type, so making one that fakes the type is not a problem.

 

[Voadam]

umm.. you're not getting my critique of this character concept.

To fake or imitate a CLASS, you have to meta-game things.
You have to assume that the world knows about D&D classes, and the abilities and skills that come with it.
This requires a suspension of disbelief that I am not comfortable with.

While we, as players, have read the book and understand the mechanics of class levels and abilities, I wouldn't feel comfortable gaming in a world where the common villager asks an outwardly noble and pious adventurer, "Why don't you just Lay Hands on that guy?"

I can understand that critique if you were talking about fighters, barbarians, and rogues, throwing on aristocrats, commoners, warriors, and experts. None of their class definitions are visible aspects. Calling someone a warrior they can be any number of classes to fit that description.

However for most of the PC classes there are visible aspects that define the class as such as well as flavor text that defines them.

People who can heal with a touch and some who can summon a mount = paladin.

Now if the term paladin is used in the game to classify people who fit that criteria it does not seem a stretch for them to be called such by people of that world. Or that if you claim to be one that people expect you can heal with a touch.

Ignorant peasants, maybe not. Lawful good church with their own paladins, then yes.

If paladins are common and called by a common term then it is not unreasonable to play off the paladin stereotype.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Reminds me of that Zogonia strip a while back.

Fighter: The high priestess has employed us to go and beat up a paladin.
Cleric: WHAT?!
Rogue: Why? What happened?

Fighter: He slew an evil cleric.
Cleric: Whats wrong with that?
Fighter: Nothing, really. It was the how. He snuck into her bedroom window at night, suffocated her with her pillow and spent all her money on whores.
Rogue: Cool!

 

[jmucchiello]

Yes but wont your manner of combat be extremely unpaladinly? Sneak attacks? Even if you're not *sneaking* its a very odd manner for a paladin to fight in.

"What do you mean sneaking? I was smiting evil, lad."

And I still say the character must have a Periapt of Health to have even a chance of fooling the sick.

I still want to know why you are telling the other players that you aren't a paladin. That would make it even more fun.

 

[Romnipotent]

"What do you mean sneaking? I was smiting evil, lad."

And I still say the character must have a Periapt of Health to have even a chance of fooling the sick.

I still want to know why you are telling the other players that you aren't a paladin. That would make it even more fun.

HERE HERE AND WHAT A SMITE! *see my original post on page 1 of this thread*
Helm of Brilliance under a Fez of Helm Hiding too. Maybe a permanancy mind blank! no fear effects!... another idea, a glove of storing and a little statue of a horse that turns into one... or something
OOOOH IDEA! Daerns Instant Fortress esque construct horse! Shrinks and such on command. Theres enough in this wonderful world. It could even be a godly gift for true "paladins" of a prankster, to con people is to please Loki!!!!

 

[reapersaurus]

If paladins are common and called by a common term then it is not unreasonable to play off the paladin stereotype.

I think this quote sums up my main problem with the approach that's been mentioned by many in this thread:

In my eyes, a paladin is not common.

Having a paladin as commonplace not only strains my believability from a human psychology point of view (e.g. there are DAMN few people that are willing to lay their lives down for the common Good), but it also completely skews the balance of normal vs spectacular beings (i.e. if paladins are common, than so are anti-paladins, therefore the extremes of personality are rendered too familiar).

It is made quite plain in the conventions of the class that paladins are the rarest of breeds.
If they were as common as other classes, than everything written about them is suspect. I know that us roleplayers may choose them just as often as, say, a Barbarian, but that doesn't change the fact that within the genre, they should be the rarest.
Remember, in D&D we are playing (what should be) a very rare individual : an adventurer. To make them (or trolls for that matter) a common sight in everyday life is to skew the dynamics of the world to the breaking point (for me).
It's similar to vampires in the World of Darkness : IIRC, the ratio there is 1 vampire for every 10,000 common persons.
I wish D&D had this kind of guideline, so that people don't (quite reasonably) begin to assume that adventurers are the norm.

Hell, whenever we play D&D, we're always the hero. Sometimes even fighting other adventurers - it's logical that we begin to think of them as normal.
But they're not - people who risk their lives regularly and weild great power and magical items are very rare. Otherwise it breaks the entire heroic fantasy genre. Who are all the people that listen to ballads of heroes, and revere great deeds, if everyone is related or friends with adventurers?
When everyone and their brother has a first-hand account of a battle with rare powers/abilities/spells/creatures being demonstrated, it reduces the sense of wonder of the entire genre. It turns it into a contemporary obsessed-with-hero society.

In such a world, I wouldn't be surprised to see a fanclub following the exploits of heroes ("Tonight - on E! News Daily"), detailing the new spells and monsters found, like an encyclopedia.
There's a reason why magic is rare. There's a reason why even adventurers don't know many abilities of monsters. There's a reason why there's not an Adventurer Academy, that trains budding PC's in all the ins and outs of monster lore, magic item 101, and Bad Guy strategies.

It's a grey area. For instance, what if trolls existed in the real world?

No offense, but you go right on ahead and game in a world that's like the real world.
I'll happily game in a world where monsters are the stuff of legends (not textbooks), and no normal person has had much dealings with them or magic.

By the core rules, Paladins cannot freely multiclass. Whatever image folks have of Paladins have, then, is going to be pretty pure. And the Paladin shtick is pretty specific - religious warrior, above average mount, fairly restictive code of conduct.

Good points as usual (you bastard! ), but I'd wager that the majority of people do not play by that core rule, so I feel confident in saying it doesn't apply often enough to justify handcuffing paladins with that ridiculous restriction.
Further, being a religious warrior with a code of conduct is hardly prima fascia evidence that you are a paladin. Many fighters and clerics would fit that description. MOST people would be religious in a world were the dieties are demonstrably real.
And a Code of Conduct is hardly something that is worn on the sleeve. I doubt if it would ever be even guessed at by anybody unless the paladin walked around touting every tenet.

In Greyhawk, for example, paladins have purportedly existed for thousands of years.
And nobody in these thousands of years has noticed these similarities or classified those who have them in some way? Yeah, right!

Very insightful as usual, but I guess this is where difference in gaming style comes in.
I simply don't game in worlds where there is an overwhelming (stifling) history of adventurers filling up the historical record with endless details of heroic exploits. That lessens the uniqueness of a hero/adventurer, and relegates him or her to (at best) an endnote in history.

Here's a general question for everyone:
How would Village X even know he was a paladin?
Does the paladin actually stroll into town telling people he's a "paladin"?
Hell, the word Paladin is a meta-gaming term.
A paladin is simply someone who believes in something so much that he's willing to die to protect or further that cause (not for his personal gain). He's (admittedly IMO) not into it for the glory, and he's certainly not going to need public approbation (i.e. approval) to get his due credits with his diety. He's not an evangelist, spewing doctrine and dogma (that's the cleric's job). He leads by example, inviting anyone else to follow.

Castellan - are you actually planning on playing a thief who will collect money in a church's (or DIETIES) name and keep it for himself? He's planning on trying to fake out individuals who should know better (i.e. people who have divination and Detect spells)?

And it's funny you mention Gilderoy Lockhart of Harry Potter. I couldn't stand how ridiculously far-fetched it was for him to have fooled anyone. It was worse than Jack Black faking out people that he was a teacher in School of Rock. At least there he was a substitute teacher. In Harry Potter, it was the most prestigious wizard school of all, yet they didn't give him one test or interview on wizardly skills? It took KIDS to suss him out? Blech.

As for your character as I understand it:
While it may be fun to play a character who will get caught impersonating a paladin, it would be more realistic (and potentially less insulting) if it didn't use religion and dieties as the people being duped. With dieties and religious power being such a palpably real thing in D&D, it's a suicidal character who impersonates religious figures for personal gain. I doubt if the diety, or any number of avatars and champions would look well upon that type of behavior.
While there's no IRS to track collected funds, usually in a fuedal, Dark Ages economy, people didn't give their religious contributions to just some guy travelling through saying he was collecting for Diety X. He'd have to convince them pretty damn well, and spend a long time generating goodwill. Not to mention that I've never thought of a paladin as someone who collects money for a church, unless it was part of normal payment for good deeds done (in which case he earned the cash).

And I appreciate the compliments. This paladin thread brought me out of my long-going lurk mode here. It's been awhile since I talked Paladin, and the board being down for 3 hours made this post longer than it would have been. Sorry for the length.

 

[Harmon]

might be a bit off subject, but.....

It occured to me that something that might help you- what about, instead of making the guy a "ya, I'm a paladin," why not make him a want ta be pally.

Example- I have a fighter/ranger, LG, heard that calling to Heirenous when he was in his teens but didn't follow through. He's a devoted following of his beloved god, but he will never get any pally levels.

It makes for an interesting character and interesting play- he follows a cleric of Heirenous about and helps her (I think that other Player thinks he has the hots for her, but its not so) and might be that he's played as being more religious then she is (better role playing on my part I think).

I doubt that's what your looking for, but it seemed to me that it was something that you might be interested in.

Good luck with the new character, hope that works for you.