What is a Paladin?

[Nightfall]

What is a Paladin

Anything that's not a ninja.

 

[Klaus]

This is a Paladin:

 

[lazarus1020]

a 'paladin' is a chosen of a deity for the purpose of being the 'fist' as opposed to the cleric, or 'face' of the diety to the world at large.

I agree with this idea of what a paladin is meant to be and have incorporated this into my campaign. The typical D&D paladin serves as the warrior to a lawful good deity and upholds this diety's beliefs. In my homebrew campaign world, every diety has paladins to serve as the warriors upholding the tenants of his/her religion. The abilities depend on which deity they serve and what the diety holds as sacred. I use a mixture of greyhawk and dragonlance pantheon and have altered the paladin class to fit each diety. I am also considering making the class a prestige class but this would require alot of work since I currently have almost 40 deities which would mean 40 different prestige classes.

An example of the various abilities would be that paladins of Wee Jas, Bocob, and Vecna all have minor access to arcane spells instead of divine. Paladins of Olidammara gets more ranks per level and access to the abilities of move silently, open locks, etc. It would take several pages to put in all the changes I have incorpotated but it gives you an idea of where I have taken the paladin class.

 

[Theron]

The Paladin is the guy who can ride into a village, get wind of something evil afoot, rally the peasants, confront the evil, make things better, and ride off into the sunset.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Based on your post I'd say if you haven't already you should take a look at the Ultimate "X" classes over on the Wizards board for some mechanical inspiration.

As to paladins I agree that they are the mailed fist of a divine entity. They represent a god's will in the material world and enforce their patrons ethos and purposes.

Mechanically I would start with a basic and mostly blank class that had suitable generic abilities. Then I would create a class feature path, sort of like a d20M talent tree. One for each God with a series of abilities that match the particular god's portfolio and interests.

 

[Drowbane]

3.Xe

Base class: A paladin is a mechanically-inferior L/G cleric who has more moral baggage implied and who rides a Pokemount.

Prestige class: A paladin is a mechanically-superior L/G cleric who has more more baggage implied and... who rides a pokemount?

What is a Paladin

And this isn’t a question of someone who’s new to the game either. I’m not talking about the d20 paladin: I’m not looking for a synopsis of the abilities and level progression, or a collection of stats, what I want to know is the core concept “What is a Paladin.”
<snip>

Well... that'll teach me to actually read the OP before I start typing....

To me a paladin should be an elite warrior of his church. Whether or not members of that church actually gain divine abilities. In a campaign world where priests and whatnot do not receive divine powers, a paladin is someone widely held in awe for upholding the principles of his religion. I think Charlemagne is an excellent example of this.

 

[Doug McCrae]

To me Sir Galahad is the archetypal paladin, though some would say it's the hero from Three Hearts and Three Lions. In Morte d'Arthur, Galahad is the best knight because he is the most Christian. His fighting prowess and achievements are only possible because he is completely pure and untainted, in contrast with Sir Lancelot who has sinned.

 

[FireLance]

First, read this article.

The following quote sums up my view:

Suffice to say that the key to understanding the paladin is not knowing how to fight, or how to heal, or how to ride a magical horse. The key is understanding the concept of sacrifice. The real-life paladins, and their mythological counterparts, weren't worshipping the god of the sun, or the god of vengeance and justice, or Pelor or Heironeous or any of the other of the dozens and dozens of fantasy gods which have appeared throughout the past few decades. They were Christians, and a major part of their belief system involved the notion that their God allowed himself to be captured, abused, humiliated, tortured and then crucified in order to save those he loved. And it was in willingly repeating that sacrifice, throwing themselves in harm's way in order to protect and serve others, that the paladin truly found his calling, and his place in the world.

 

[italianranma]

Thank you to everyone who’s responded so far. We’ve got a pretty good consensus on the basics. Now I’d like to answer some harder questions. Let’s keep this discussion very civil because it’s all about opinions anyway.

Most people replied with a righteous warrior who is chosen by a deity, or champions the faith. I guess the next question then is how is a righteous warrior defined? What makes someone ‘good’ versus ‘evil’? These concepts are very hard to define but everyone has a general sense about what is good and evil. We can call that sense morality, and probably agree that something that conforms to our standards of acceptable behavior is morally good, and something in odds with it is morally wrong or evil. Now I believe that morality is a learned concept, and so it defers depending on your own experiences. Do you agree with this, or do you believe that there is one set moral code that all people abide by?
If you can accept that moral codes are different depending on cultures and environments, then is it different for paladins?

Now conceder this morally ambiguous question: Assume that there is a valley with enough resources to support one culture. A village of humans lives there, and a tribe of orcs wants to move in. This valley can only support one, so naturally there is war. The orcs are fighting for survival. Does a human paladin fight the orcs? Would it make a difference if instead of orcs the tribe was of humans?

On a related topic;
- Papastebu, thanks for your input. As far as paladins in exalted, are you talking about the exalted in general? There’s no paladin class that I know of in there. As far as Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King being paladins, I’m not sold on that because they were all pacifists. I believe that a paladin is more narrowly defined as a holy warrior, fighting is implied. I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this in these forums: Everyone is happy with a paladin fighting against demons, and undead and the like, but what about bandits? What about mind controlled guards? What about people who are misguided and in the paladin’s way? I know these kinds of issues cause a lot of heartache for some people. Discussions get bogged down in the what-if’s all the time, but it’s important when we really define paladin to know these answers.

p.s. I typed this up without reading the last few posts, so please excuse me. I'm reading that article right now.

 

[Nightfall]

What, me saying they aren't ninjas wasn't enough?