Agamon
Adventurer
So Divine Smite works on everyone now? Well...so much for him being on "Team Good Guy"
It works better on undead and demons.
It's not arbitrary restrictions on abilities that make him on Team Good Guy, it's his oath.
So Divine Smite works on everyone now? Well...so much for him being on "Team Good Guy"
So Divine Smite works on everyone now? Well...so much for him being on "Team Good Guy"
So Divine Smite works on everyone now? Well...so much for him being on "Team Good Guy"
Really? Considering that alignment no longer has mechanical effects at all (no more detect evil!), this would surprise me.
So Divine Smite works on everyone now? Well...so much for him being on "Team Good Guy"
There is nothing inherent about smiting that says the target has to be evil or committing evil acts, it's just someone the god approves of killing. And the god themselves might not be good.
Am I the only one that cringed and then face palmed over the half-orc paladin?
To my mind, it's dependent on whether you view alignment as the sum of your actions or the sum of your ideals. The ideal a paladin aims for might be LG, but he has his personal issues that might make him LN or NG. Or his sworn ideals might not be LG at all, an Oath of Vengeance towards wrongdoers strikes me as CG, personally (although I understand there are differing interpretations). I think the important part of the paladin's oath is that it represents something she strives for, even it proves to be an impossible goal.
The Oath of Vengeance seems very much Batman to me. Was Batman lawful good?
I think this will be it, short of houserules or DMG-inspired class hybridization. Want to be a non-casting Paladin? Just burn all your spell slots on smites. Done. A tiny lizard told me rangers might also have a way of burning spell slots, but we'll see what makes it into the PHB.
Paladins and alignment is easily and properly house-ruled: Paladins are LG. There, done. I'd add "human, elf, or half-elf only" too, because I'm a bigot. I just don't see the stunty-race Paladin thing, and orcs and half-orcs? Uhm, no.
Nope! Thief, Assassin, Barbarian,[fill in evil class here], there are plenty of appropriate places to put orcish character art. It's fine on the cover of Dragon or whatever, but not in the PHB as the first, archetypical illustration.
To my mind, alignment reflects action, not thought. And I think of Paladin as a very strict class, one where backsliders can observe from afar and do their striving as fighters.
I do have that much room for interpretation in the Paladin; his LG need not be everyone else's LG. Lawful changes from one jurisdiction to the next and I don't think the Paladin (or any other LG character) need or should change along with.
I think the burn spell slots on class abilities thing is an inspired way to let people play spell-less versions of spellcasting classes. It would be nifty to seal the deal with an extra crumb or two for characters incapable of using those slots on spells, though.