Say if I'm a paladin can I get a demon cohort?

[Mystery Man]

No. Demons are beings of pure evil and chaos, and if they were to somehow no longer be beings of chaos and evil they would not exist. Can a fire elemental still be a fire elemental without the fire type?

I think you're mixing your metaphors.

 

[Quartz]

For all of you who say, "No!" I say, "Go read Sepulchrave's Story Hour!"

 

[lukelightning]

For all of you who say, "No!" I say, "Go read Sepulchrave's Story Hour!"

Story schmory. Demons being good are getting cliche and overdone. I say bring back the classic evil demon. "Working begrudgingly with evil" is not something paladins do. It's something neutral heroes do.

 

[sjmiller]

If WotC can post a succubus Paladin, then the answer is yes. You just need to get one with the correct alignment.

Just because they CAN do it doesn't mean they SHOULD do it.

 

[Mystery Man]

Story schmory. Demons being good are getting cliche and overdone. I say bring back the classic evil demon. "Working begrudgingly with evil" is not something paladins do. It's something neutral heroes do.

I honestly think the first thing a paladin should do is try his darndest to destroy a demon. If by some weird rare special circumstance there is some remote possibility that the paladin has to work with this demon (there can be such a thing, plot wise) he is going to try to turn it. It's just his nature. I also think the margin of success for such an act should be very, very small.

 

[lukelightning]

If by some weird rare special circumstance there is some remote possibility that the paladin has to work with this demon (there can be such a thing, plot wise)...

If the plot is "strip the paladin of his paladinhood" you mean.

 

[IcyCool]

If by some weird rare special circumstance there is some remote possibility that the paladin has to work with this demon (there can be such a thing, plot wise)

A paladin cannot knowingly associate or work with and Evil being.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Discuss.

The answer is yes. But if he knownlingly associates with a evil character/creature like his demon cohort, he will violate his code of conduct, so he can no longer advance as a Paladin and loses all Paladin special abilities. (this is not entirely correct, rereading the section - the rules about associates are not part of the Code of Conduct, at least not in the PHB II)

If he wants to avoid that, he has to find a demon that changed his alignment. I think change of the subtype is not required, but I doubt that a Paladin would want to risk that, especially since there is no way to determine the true alignment through the subtype (as detect [alignment] would always spring onto the subtype, not the alignment of the creature if it has a alignment subtype) with normal spells, and especially the Paladings Detect Evil abilty will simply fail...

 

[Shemeska]

It's utterly rare, but it happens. Like it or not, fiends can be redeemed and celestials can fall. Baalzebul went LG to LE, Asuras are archons that fall along the Law/Chaos axis, and I can think of several neutral or good fiends.

But the question is: is a risen fiend still a fiend? Yes and no. Sort of. A fallen archon certainly isn't an archon, they're something new entirely, and similarly for a redeemed fiend. For a true outsider, their alignment = their soul = their physical body. If their alignment were to shift, their physical composition and appearance is going to change just as radically as their behavior and psyche will.

3e has not exactly handled this well, or in detail. WotC had a succubus paladin, but they kept her [Evil] subtype, which makes little sense. We don't keep the [Good] subtype on fallen archons, be they Zalatian XXIII or Baalzebul/Triel.

And then of course there's the Sanctify the Wicked spell (aka conversion by the sword, aka Exalted mindrape), but let's try to avoid that, because as is, most paladin threads go downhill fast enough as it is.

 

[Tiberius]

And then of course there's the Sanctify the Wicked spell (aka conversion by the sword, aka Exalted mindrape), but let's try to avoid that, because as is, most paladin threads go downhill fast enough as it is.

Seriously. How is THAT a [Good] spell? "I want you to be good, so I'll dispense with the formality of offering you a choice in the matter and go straight to bending the essence of your being to my whim."

Between that, converting evil through Diplomacy, and the idea of the deathless, I wonder why one of my players wonders why I exclude the BoED...