What *is* it about paladins that makes people nutty, anyway?

[jester47]

Why is it always paladins that we get these threads about? Why, out of all the classes, is it the paladin that seems to drive a significant percentage of the playing population nutty? I imagine it's because, unlike any of the other base classes, they've got the most explicit code of behavior presented in the PHB, but that's just my guess.

The problem is actually cultural.

The truth is that Paladins are the only character class that are built around the idea that there is an absolute of right and wrong, good and evil.

The modern west is becoming a relativistic society. Generally truth in the society is becoming a personal thing. According to this way of thinking what may be true for me is not true for you. There is the idea that there really is no evil, its just a matter of perspective and opinion, or that there is evil but it is really rare and everything else is just a matter of perspective and opinion.

The paladin as a character class introduces a character that believes that there is only one truth and that evil is real. The values of the paladin are not relativistic. And that is why we have a big problem integrating the concept of it into the relativistic world view that most people seem to have and base their campaigns around.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I solved a lot of the problem by defining the Paladin's Code for each religion (and writing up variant paladins for each of the God's in the setting) as well as discussing with the player what constituted good and evil.

They all break down from the following list...

• Obey the tenets of the faith.
• Obey the laws of authority
• Protect those who cannot or will not protect themselves
• Be honest in relationships, be they casual or intimate
• Be neither miser nor spendthrift
• Use diplomacy when available, an unsheathed sword may be difficult to resheathe
• Know when mercy furthers the cause of faith, and when it leads to greater evil.

That's just the baseline. It helped me do the 10-20 bylines for each paladin, and in general, helped the player.

Many people see Paladins as not being team players, but of all the character classes, they seem to me to be the most likely to be a team player. They inherently know and understand thier place in the group, as well as appreciating and being gracious of the other party member's talents. They are often instructed to be humble, and not to seek glory, which means that they are VERY unlikely to yell "MINE! I GET TO DO THIS!" when it is obviously the job of another member. Being fair and just, they wouldn't argue over who gets a magical blade, or other junky little trinket, but instead would step aside.

Personally, from what I've seen, most people's problem is fairly simple...

The Code of Honor and Ethics that the Paladin attempts to hold themselves too bothers people. In some cases quite violently.

 

[jester47]

In fact, that certain holy book that mentions JC a lot has a verse: "Be as wise as serpents but as gentle as doves." Again...consider the implications.

context- JC is sending out his desciples with nothing but the clothes on their backs to spread the word... They have a high probability of getting their rears handed to them and is telling them to be careful but not to loose their inocence.

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

 

[William Ronald]

Firelance, using the system in your sig would warrant xp in my view ... but what I described doesn't. My taking a 10 is almost cheating; either I've ducked the challenge completely, or I've made an excuse for my failure. But that was my "evil DM" scenario. Under a good DM, I'd be more likely to try actually rolling the dice and rolling with the punches from there. Or asking the DM about some relevant details of the religion and making my own judgement from there.

Either approach is preferrable than putting a player in an unwinnable situation for a character with no way out. Perhaps one approach is for a DM and player to come up with some basic tenets of each religion in a campaign for PCs to understand. This way, a player might have a basic understanding of the views of the PC's deity. This also can be done for different sects that focus on different aspects of the same deity.

Thotas, I think you made a valid point in that those who follow identically aligned deity may not always have the same goals or use the same methods to achieve their goals.

Firelance, I will have to check your system out soon.

Jester47, you do point out an issue that there are many different value systems in Western society. Possibly one approach for a player of a paladin is hinted at in the paladin's code. The code does give the paladin some leeway in terms of associates. So, a paladin may well have friends who share similar values. Additionally, a paladin PC could focus on actions that he or she believes are evil, while arguing against the ideas behind them. For example, a paladin opposed to slavery could stop slavers, and try to advocate for economic systems or innovations that are alternatives to the use of slave labor. Perhaps a good approach for a paladin PC to take with a morally relativistic character is to ask if that character would chose the same thing for himself that is being done to others in the world.

 

[jester47]

The other thing that makes paladins hard to play in this society is that we have virtualy outlawed the emotions of hate and anger. These can be justified and righteous. Note that hate is not the trademarked hate as in being homophobic or racist or whatever, it is the hate that come from the desire to protect the people and the good things that one loves.

Thus a paladin can hate evil and be angered by its actions and be justified in some violence.

But by and large this can be a very hard thing for people in our society to fathom, especially if you have been told all your life that hateing or being angry at anything is bad. Thats where we get the goody 2 shoes palladin from.

Aaron.

 

[Hussar]

Why? Why wouldn't we just see a lot more neutral and a lot less good and have a lot more characters who didn't even make the minimal effort to seem good now and again? if the Gm sets the bar on GOOD as far as you seem, it becomes unattainable, so why would they even try?

But the bigger issue in my book with such a standard is this... Is the Gm setting that bar going to run adventures that also cater to that style of play? Are his bad guys going to be setup so that "non-ambush" tactics are just fine? Are his scenarios going to be setup so that not needing to lie doesn't in itself foil the chances of success? is he going to setup sceanrios where "reward" or "payment" isn't at the heart of the quest?

See, perhaps the biggest problem with the paladin code isn't with other players notn being good enough, but with most of the "standards adventure/scenario types" not being scripted with "paladins moral code" in mind and the GMs who blindly do "the usual" without considering how that "usual" intersects with the characters involved until the OBVIOUS conflicts boil over.

Allowing a paladin in the game is the Gm saying "that character is appropriate for this campaign" and if the adventures that then follow highlight or focus on scripts contrary to that character or worse yet bring these issues into crisis (without consideration for resolution) then that Gm has just done that player a disservice.

Couple of points.

First off, there is nothing wrong with ambush tactics. They are morally justified. Period. I never said that they weren't. There's no need to punish any character who uses them. Paladin DOES NOT EQUAL Cavalier.

That's the issue more than anything else. People insist that paladins must adhere to a chivalric code and that is most definitely NOT in the RAW. A paladin who sets up an ambush is perfectly justified (assuming that he's ambushing bad guys as part of getting rid of bad guys and not ambushing merchants for their gold) since it is not against any element in the code. A paladin/rogue who snipes from the bushes to gain sneak attacks is fine, depending on the situation of course.

Another problem is people want to make blanket rulings that cover all situations. That's not the point of the code. The code is a guideline for how the paladin will generally behave, but it is up to the DM and the player to determine how the code applies.

You mentioned a cleric setting up shop in a town and healing. That's an actively good act. It would actually be somewhat expected of good clerics of healing gods but would certainly count as actively being good in my books for any cleric. However, that is very rare IME. I have never actualy seen a cleric player do that before unless it was to raise cash. I've rarely seen cleric players preach to the masses either. Yet, this should be a major point for the class. Just because it's not in the RAW doesn't mean it should be ignored.

I will agree 100% with the point that clerics (and other religious types) should have their roles greatly expanded within the RAW. I don't have the Complete Divine, so I don't know, but was the role defined further in that book? If not, that's a great shame. Divine classes literally ooze with character, yet, time and again, I see players taking fighters with healing abilities.

Honorable =/= lawful. A character could be seen as honorable through trickery, yet not be lawful. A lawful character in the RAW rarely lies. It specifically mentions this under LE that they keep their word. While they might mislead and let others draw false conclusions, they rarely outright lie. A priest of Cuthbert, who has LAW as one of his primary tenets would not lie without repercussions. I really don't understand anyone arguing that a priest of Law would lie without any problems. To each his own I guess, but a priest of Cuthbert, or Heironeous in my campaigns who lied for gain would lose his abilities instantly. That's a gross violation of dogma IMO.

As far as associate means, I would take that to be more than　a one time meeting or casual gathering. I would think that associate means allowing to be part of the party or a cohort. In the example of allying with the evil mage to defeat the harpies, both answers are completly fine. A DM who stripped the paladin for allying with the mage in a temporary manner like this is being a dumbass. Now, after the harpies have been run off, the truce is over and things get interesting again, but, saving the innocent lives of the villagers has to take precedence over anything.

 

[swrushing]

Couple of points.

First off, there is nothing wrong with ambush tactics. They are morally justified. Period. I never said that they weren't. There's no need to punish any character who uses them. Paladin DOES NOT EQUAL Cavalier.

So, using ambush tactics wouldn't be seen by you as "taking the most expedient route over the morally justified"?

this much latitude on combat you are willing to give but when it comes to the lawful cleric lying thats an absolute no-no?

if a lawful cleric cannot use a lie to further his ends, why can he use other forms of deception such as ambush tactics without problem?

Why isn't he expected to be as honorable in combat as in negotiation? The stakes in the former are life and death so why isn't it as much taken seriously?

I did once play a paladin who believed in, being an example of the right weay to do things, fair fights. Against human or humanoid opposition, he did not participate in unfair battles, which usually meant he wanted the numbers to be even or at least against him. In a particular fight, he was one on one against the big bad of the bandit crew and was fine with him, after all, he did tend to go for the big bad.

When another PC joined in, making it 2-1, he told him to drop back. When the PC refused, the paladin did drop back, leaving the guy one-on-one.

he believed in honorable fights.

Now, i am not saying thats how all paladins should be.

but from your description of how hard it is to be good, how most are not good, and how strict an honor code is for discussion (cannot tolerate a lie) i find your leniency on using deceptive tactics such as ambush in combat is so absolutely tolerated... so as to be "nothing wrong" with them.

 

[Satori]

I know the only real problem I had with them began in 2nd Edition.

The Paladin in that edition was basically a Power Gamer's giggly soggy dream. The high pre-reqs and misc requirements seemed to rationalize a rather silly set of huge abilities that had a tendency to overshine the other classes.

It got to the point where some wiggly munchkins would ALWAYS call "shotgun" on playing the paladin simply because they were so good.

When you have a bunch of drooling dice grubbers with overpowered characters, what do you think a stressed out and fed-up DM will do? He'll attempt to remedy the situation within the rules available.

The easiest way to do this was to actually force ROLEPLAY! GASP!

Legions and cities of twinked paladins were suddenly stricken of their holy might as they were suddenly held accountable for their actions...

...and the peasants rejoiced.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Honorable =/= lawful. A character could be seen as honorable through trickery, yet not be lawful. A lawful character in the RAW rarely lies. It specifically mentions this under LE that they keep their word. While they might mislead and let others draw false conclusions, they rarely outright lie. A priest of Cuthbert, who has LAW as one of his primary tenets would not lie without repercussions. I really don't understand anyone arguing that a priest of Law would lie without any problems. To each his own I guess, but a priest of Cuthbert, or Heironeous in my campaigns who lied for gain would lose his abilities instantly. That's a gross violation of dogma IMO.

Actually, under both LN and LE in the PHB, there is no specific mention of a character having to be honest (as in, tell the truth). Even LG states that they "tell the truth", but doesn't say they are incapable of doing otherwise. On that score, I would be tempted to read that as being implied, but still, the rules are annoyingly vague when taken literally as written.

Once more, the spirit of the rules strikes me as being fairly obvious, in most cases, whereas the text itself needs some rather drastic revising and expanding, IMO.

I agree that a priest/ess of St. Cuthbert should be devoutly honest and all the rest. Unfortunately, there's nothing other than a good player and/or a good DM to stop them being something else entirely.

 

[Sejs]

The other thing that makes paladins hard to play in this society is that we have virtualy outlawed the emotions of hate and anger. These can be justified and righteous. Note that hate is not the trademarked hate as in being homophobic or racist or whatever, it is the hate that come from the desire to protect the people and the good things that one loves.

Thus a paladin can hate evil and be angered by its actions and be justified in some violence.

But by and large this can be a very hard thing for people in our society to fathom, especially if you have been told all your life that hateing or being angry at anything is bad. Thats where we get the goody 2 shoes palladin from.

Aaron.

A lot of that problem stems from the fact that a number of people think that paladin = jedi.