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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormborn" data-source="post: 3435937" data-attributes="member: 14041">A Paladin is the martial champion of a faith characterized by zealous devotion and adherance to a clearly defined code of behavior and manifested in mental, physical, and spiritual strength which can be viewed as a divine gift, a reflection of inner character, or (most likely) a combination of the two. The DnD paladin is a fairly specific example of this in my way of thinking.  Considering the mechanical benifits we have full BAB, good weapons and armor proficiencies, detect evil, smite, turning, lay on hands, divine grace, mount, and spells among other things.  Several of these, the ability to BAB, proficiencies, detect evil, smite, and turn, all have to do with protecting against or attacking the enemies of the faith and work well within the definition given above.  If not adhering to standard DnD (or moding) I would say that the Paladin must have unique abilities to combat the foes of the faith.  Simply being good at martial combat is not enough, something must differentiate this champion of the faith from other martial combatants who might be faithful.  How that is manifested is up to you but I would suggest the ability to see through the deciets of the foe and manifest righteous wrath against them.  Some of them, lay on hands and the spells mostly, reflect the ability to aid the faithful - particularly the faithful who are fighting evil.  I would suggest that characters that share the same faith as the paladin have some benifit to his, or her, presence.  This could be a bardic/martial type effect or it could be closer to the core paladin.Other abilities reflect the inner spiritual strenght of the paladin, notably divine grace and immunity to fear.  My suggestion is to determin what kinds of attacks the enemy of the faith uses the most and grant the Paladin a degree of immunity to that.  If magic something like SR, if illusion then the ability to see through it, if enchantment then fear and charm immunity, etc. Different orders could focus on different roles and thus manifest different abilities.  One that was dedicated to harrowing the enemy might have abilities at tracking, light armor, and a favored enemy type bonus. Guardians of important figures and sites might have different abilities while those that act as religious judges or inquisitors still others.  In a fantasy realm there are a lot of roles that one could point to and say "that is a person is a paladin", far beyond the mounted holy warrior of core DnD.  The key distinction will the level of their devotion and the manifestations of it.</blockquote>

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