D&D 5E Should classes retain traditional alignment restrictions in 5E?

[LurkAway]

(still catching up on the rest of the thread...)

Say you have a cleric of a chaotic deity. This cleric must follow the deity's instructions and ethics or risk losing their powers. Do you label this cleric as Lawful for following the rules or Chaotic for the actions they take?

Firstly, I don't really understand (or just forgot) what a Chaotic god is (vs an Unaligned god, which is what I think they should be). I think I got confused when CE primordials want to rearrange the world, the CE demons want to destroy the world, some CE entities want to annihilate existence itself (whatever that means) and so the Chaotic niche seems oversaturated and not sure what a chaotic god is.

I suppose the Lawful priest strictly abides by a rigid code of conduct AND does so faithfully as a matter of principle, whereas the Chaotic priest has looser scriptures, may chafe under any code of conduct, but does so relunctantly. The lawful one finds purpose in following the code, the chaotic one just hopes the end justifies the means.

This would be overly simplistic in the real world, but D&D isn't real, it only has to be true in the D&D world (mostly if you accept the D&D Alignment system as overt cosmological/moral principles).

That said, it still grates me (a lot) with the frequent corner cases, like the 4E archon, which is supposedly Chaotic Evil, yet has a very rigid hierarchical soldier behavior IIRC. I always thought D&D cosmology would feel less forced and contrived and more organic if they didn't try to cram everything into the alignment box.

Of course, you could call me hypocritical regardling labelling the paladin with an alignment restriction, but I'm just brainstorming, and I don't have strong views on the paladin one way or another, so don't expect me to be consistent!

I'm only struggling to understand the soul of the paladin, and historically, the paladin was defined within context of the alignment system. It's most important to me that any class has a compelling distinct core identity; otherwise, it should be decoupled into a class theme (as per the Paladin thread).

 

[LurkAway]

On the smite front, 4e handles this by giving paladins access to melee radiant attacks, which is de facto smite undead because nearly all undead are vulnerable to radiant damage. (Not demons or devils, though.) So damage types is another way of achieving "smite" without alignment.

I was thinking of this yesterday. The Paladin might be rebooted as a Radiant Knight (a knight in shining armor, literally!). Then in the flavor, describe the radiant powers as a boon from a god, being favored as a divine or moral champion, due to lawful dedication to certain codes and cause (or perhaps it's just a secular Law of the Universe that Radiance comes automatically to those who champion a certain code/cause).

It would then be rare but possible to have an Evil Radiant Knight, and the apparently conflict/oxymoron is what makes this character a walking blasphemy and anti-paladin (sort of like a falling angel I guess)

 

[pemerton]

I'm only struggling to understand the soul of the paladin, and historically, the paladin was defined within context of the alignment system. It's most important to me that any class has a compelling distinct core identity; otherwise, it should be decoupled into a class theme (as per the Paladin thread).

I think the number of contemporary RPGers who have read the Poul Anderson stories would be few. I think the paladin gets its currency from the continued power of the "knight in shining armour" as a cultural motif. Sir Lancelot, King Arthur, even Aragorn in the climactic battle on Dagorlad in the LotR movies.

So I think the class needs to be associated with heavy arms and armour, and some sort of code/honour/devotion. I think the alignment thing is just one way of doing this (and not really my preferred way - I mean, why can't the rulebook just say "these guys are code-bound knights" without setting up a mechanic for what that means?).

 

[LurkAway]

So I think the class needs to be associated with heavy arms and armour, and some sort of code/honour/devotion. I think the alignment thing is just one way of doing this (and not really my preferred way - I mean, why can't the rulebook just say "these guys are code-bound knights" without setting up a mechanic for what that means?).

But for me, that in itself is not enough to justify a paladin as a separate class. Any fighter can put on heavy arms and armour, follow some code/honor/devotion, and doesn't necessarily have any magic to show for it. In another thread, I thought that the classes are best defined by how they fight, not why or what they fight. You usually don't require mechanics to model an honorable fighter, just roleplay it.

 

[Hassassin]

But for me, that in itself is not enough to justify a paladin as a separate class. Any fighter can put on heavy arms and armour, follow some code/honor/devotion, and doesn't necessarily have any magic to show for it. In another thread, I thought that the classes are best defined by how they fight, not why or what they fight. You usually don't require mechanics to model an honorable fighter, just roleplay it.

So person in shiny armor = fighter class, person with code of honor = paladin theme?

 

[LurkAway]

So person in shiny armor = fighter class, person with code of honor = paladin theme?

I think it's possible, a simple nuanced way to give everyone what they want (but maybe not the way they expected).

Fighter class defines how you fight, paladin theme defines why you fight. Like the way a gladiator or mercenary could be a theme and not a class.

I'm not sure how a Paladin theme would layer on top of the class, ie does it add Radiance damage or something like that? If you wanted to put alignment guidelines (if not actual restrictions) on the theme, you could so so.

I don't think that 5E is taking that route, but if they don't, then for Paladin's sake, please define or rebrand them in a way that justifies a distinct class that doesn't overlap with knights as honorable fighters or clerics as holy warriors.

EDIT: Or, you could have both: A champion/knight class (somehow distinguished from fighter or cleric) and then add a paladin theme if you want to do the Lawful Good paladin with Radiance damage.

2nd EDIT: And if the PC loses paladinhood by failing the code of conduct, he/she swaps the Paladin theme but for another, like Fallen Paladin and gets Unholy or Shadow damage instead of Radiant. The beauty of this is that the class mechanics remain intact.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Mike Mearls appears to see alignment as one of those traits that define D&D, together with the six ability scores, classes and levels. In my opinion, an element is not defining your game when it has no mechanical relevance, and that's why I believe that alignments should again be relevant mechanically in D&DN.

That said, how can alignments be relevant to the game mechanically? To me, one of the ways of doing that is placing alignment restrictions in character classes. As someone else pointed in another thread, a good multiclass system will probably be enough to make your fighter/rogue into a lawful good assassin or your fighter/cleric into a chaotic evil holy warrior. When I see the paladin and the assassin in the core game, I see a clear message about the kind of thing that each alignment has to show:

- Good is about healing and protecting people, crushing evil and becoming empowered for face to face honorable combat.
-Evil is about the murder: fast, easy and clean, through dirty tricks and stealth.
- Chaos is about losing control and delivering the necessary blow, and no feature in the game is more representative of this than barbarian rage.
- Law, on the other hand, is about controlling. And you see that most of the monk features are developed around the idea of perfect self-control.

For anyone familiar with the MtG card game, think in terms of different colors gaining different things, and you start to see where I'm going. I know that some of you hate alignment, and I respect that, but alignment has been a part of D&D for a long time now, and will probably stay. Detect evil and protection from evil are part of D&D as much as detect magic and mage armor. 4E tried to get rid of those various "D&Disms" instead of embracing them for a better game and now we are discussing D&DNext.

For myself, I really hope that the designers manage to create a system where alignment is relevant without becoming a punishment for player characters whenever the demon enters the scene and casts a blasphemy. One of the things I support, though, is using the various character classes to show the kind of weapon that the different alignments use to drive their goals.

Cheers,

 

[Rampant]

I don't like alignment as a general rule, whether that's because it's been implemented poorly in past editions or because I'm a contrarian philosopher by nature is up for debate.

However I'm pretty sure it has no place in the base classes. One of the issues facing DnD is class glut. In 3e we had several classes such as the samurai and the swashbuckler based around a too specific idea that didn't support multiple archetypes. Furthermore we had the knight, favored soul, cleric, paladin, and fighter all as different classes.

Pathfinder learned its lesson somewhat and tends to create alternate class features rather than whipping up whole new classes on the spot.

If the good gods or the lawful gods or the whichever gods get a special class that only their dedicants can take, then it only makes sense that the other gods would whip up their own champions. Now you have to go through the hassle of coming up with a champion type class for each of the alignments.

So wouldn't the smart thing be to create a basic champion class for any alignment and then make Paladin one of the options for the class progression. Now the paladin can be alignment restricted, without closing off the divine combat champion archetype to the other alignments, or having to make 3-9 separate classes.

 

[harlokin]

Just please no Detect Evil spam......

 

[Dead Scribe]

I don't care if there's alignment in the game, as long as I don't have to use it or care about it. No alignment restrictions on classes. No alignment-based effects. No "Smite Evil" or "Detect Evil." I don't like alignment-based metaphysical underpinnings to the cosmology either, but I'm guessing that's a lost cause.