Reclaim the name of Paladin!

[FireLance]

Finally, I've thought of a cause that I can be somewhat hyperbolic, unreasonable and one-true-wayish about.

One of the greatest travesties of 4e was that any character with a bit of divine backing and some ability to challenge or mark his enemies was allowed to call himself by the name of "paladin" regardless of his moral fibre (and let's not even talk about blackguards ).

With the advent of a new edition, I propose to consign all amoral, dishonorable, unrighteous and evil so-called "paladins" to the cleansing pyres of history, to be consumed by holy flame until not even a single blemished scrap of memory remains.

The name of "paladin" should henceforth only be borne by the righteous, holy, honorable, dedicated, heroic and good. Let the forces of evil once again tremble at the very mention of the name of "paladin" and fear their righteous wrath and holy smites.

Who is with me?

 

[harlokin]

Not me, not even slightly.

You can play your Paladin any way you like, and a DM is free to determine what Paladins are like in their campaign, but I want the option of playing a Paladin the way I envisage it; a holy warrior of any faith.

 

[Hassassin]

I like the Paladin of Freedom variant from UA. The Prestige Paladin is even better, because I think paladinhood should be earned.

 

[Szatany]

I like the Paladin of Freedom variant from UA. The Prestige Paladin is even better, because I think paladinhood should be earned.

Totally agreed. Paladin should be a prestige class (or equivalent). From 1st level you should play a champion, knight, fanatic, or something like that.

 

[Transformer]

Not only is it a bad idea to officially snub people who like the paladin class specifically but don't want to be paragons of good, and not only is it a bad idea to bake the alignment system back into the crunch via class restrictions (one of the few things most everyone agrees should stay dead): it creates legitimate design problems. If neutral and evil paladins aren't gonna represent avatars of non-good values who receive their limited magical powers from the gods, then what class is? Should players who want to play anti-paladins and blackguard-types have to settle with reflavoring the fighter or monk or something, while the "I am a lawful good knight in shining armor, champion of the good God Daintymoil!" types get their own class because they're not having badwrong fun, even though the paladin class could easily take care of both?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Yeah, I'm with you. I also think assassins should smoke hasish.

 

[Gilladian]

I created, for my 3.5 campaign, a whole series of "Knights Templar" prestige classes that were each assigned to one religious order. Unfortunately, except for Knights of St. Justin, who were the most "paladinlike" of them all, nobody ever ran one as a PC.

When I reverted to E6, where prestige classes don't really work, I brought the paladin class back into my game, but with the following variations: lawful alignment required (and I have an overall "no evil" policy), and must pick a knightly order to be a member of. That required following the behavior code laid out for that order. Again, only a paladin of St. Justin has intrigued anyone, but this IS the first campaign with the new rules, so we'll see.

For 5e, I would like the ability to play a LG PALADIN to be available. I think that the name paladin should be reserved for the LG holy warrior. But I also believe that other lawful religious warrior orders should exist. With different names. Let the DM decide on them as appropriate for the campaign, if it is hard to select them overall.

 

[frankthedm]

Let the forces of evil once again tremble at the very mention of the name of "paladin" and fear their righteous wrath and holy smites.

Hell yeah! Put the line in the sand! Let no wickedness escape the Paladin! Whether it lurks in the dungeon, or it hides among the party, the Paladin will smite all evil that comes before it!

 

[mkill]

Objection!

My favorite D&D character of any edition is my Drow Paladin of Rhazzanor (home campaign deity, black dragon god of death). So yeah, he uses poison and stimulating drugs, and he killed his upstart cousin who betrayed the family. He is upright and honorable. Honor is just defined differently in his culture.

 

[harlokin]

For 5e, I would like the ability to play a LG PALADIN to be available. I think that the name paladin should be reserved for the LG holy warrior. But I also believe that other lawful religious warrior orders should exist. With different names. Let the DM decide on them as appropriate for the campaign, if it is hard to select them overall.

There would be nothing stopping somebody playing their Paladin as Awful Good as they want.

What I do not understand is the need by some people to impose restrictions on how other players can play their Paladin, and insisting that anything other than the Lawful Good version just isn't DnD.