Why aren't paladins liked?

[Darmanicus]

Okay, here is the short of it, now that I am home. I'm still home but sober this time.

All pages 3.5 PHK. PHK? Not come across that abbreviation before or if I have it's not ringing any bells.

Page 30, under alignment, he can be one away from his Gods alignment and says nothing about swearing a code of conduct. Pg 33 under Ex-Clerics, 'A Cleric who grossly violates the CODE OF CONDUCT REQUIRED BY HIS GOD, (generally by acting in ways opposed to the gods alignment or purposes), loses all spells and class features' blah, blah, blah. This would suggest swearing to a code of conduct in some sort of initiation ceremony much like say our soldiers swear to serve the queen.

Page 33, under ex-clerics, only talks about grossly violating code of conduct required by his god. Re losing powers this is exactly the same as it is for a paladin. If you want to use the defaults ie. Paladin has no god, Cleric has a god then their restrictions are far more similar than you might imagine. Paladins should be adhering to a code and not willingly commit evil wheras clerics should be adhering to their gods code AND alignment. so in the case of a good cleric NOT willingly commitin evil acts.

page 42, under alignment, must be lawful good (none of this up to one step away crap) and they must swear to an oath, either to a God, a king or whatever. So the Cleric beats Paladin on alignment restiction just, I won't argue that point however I will say there's not much difference there. Yes they must swear to some oath, Paladin, but be 'realistic', just because it doesn't say swear an oath to a god do you really think any old 1st level qualifier can just turn around and say I'm now a Cleric of X WITHOUT some form of oath/loyalty swearing? Of course they couldn't, the god in question would say sod off mate, if you think I'm lending you some of my hard earned divinity on a daily basis for naught but a boost to my 'faithful' you've got another thing coming, get yer ass down the nearest temple and swear that oath in front of me high priest and just be gratefull that I don't have a word with 'im beforehand thus condeming you to 5 years of initatehood of latrine cleaning......with yer tongue........now get!!!

Page 44 ex-paladins the main point here that is different from a cleric is that , he has higher standards, if he ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commit an evil act or grossly violates the code of conduct. I'd say that he only has slightly higher standards than the Cleric because of the alignment, everything else is much the same. I think it more comes down to how they've been portrayed by players and DM alike, as I've said it seems as though, according to a lot of people, that a cleric can just do mostly as he pleases because who's gonna berate the healer? Hussar got it right with the last sentence in his last post, 'IMVHO, there are far more healing battery clerics wandering around who have never once questioned any of the party's actions than poorly played paladins.'

The big difference here is of course the commit evil act. A lawful good cleric could commit an evil act if it was a one time thing or he thought it was really the only way to handle the situation and not lose his powers, not so with a paladin. There is no bargining room for a paladin. I refer you once again to the 1st sentence detailing Ex-Clerics on Pg 33, a LG Cleric could NOT commit an evil act as this would be a gross violation of gods alignment.

page 103, under alignment, last paragraph: This is where it gets funny so thanks for bringing it up......

Alignment is a tool for developing your character's identity. It is not a straight jacket for restricting your character. Unless you are a Paladin, Cleric, Monk or Barbarian IIRC!!! Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two lawful good characters can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent. A lawful good character may have a greedy streak that occasionally tempts him to take something or hoard something he has, even if that's not a lawful or good behavior. Sorry but being greedy is not really evil or unlawful unless it's at the expense of people who are suffering. If you wanna stuff yer face you can still be good. I won't go too much into an alignment discussion though as I'm not that big a fan of it in D&D or anything else for that matter. Between the deeds that you do or not and the DM you should be able to work that out for yourselves.

page 104, under lawful good, a lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps, those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

To get back on track with our debate, a lawful good cleric has the liberty to act differently than a lawful good paladin. While neither should lie and neither should do evil acts and neither should be greedy, the cleric has the luxury of being able to do that on occasion while the paladin doesn't. Not entirely true and if it's against there gods code/alignment then DEFINITELY not.

page 44 again, under code of conduct, a paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities is she ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help of evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

So again, there is a difference between the two, the paladin and any other character who happens to be lawful good. Apart from the Cleric. Again, they are the highest in morals and the ultimate symbol of the Lawful good alignment. In addition to the alignment, they can not cheat from it like other classes can because they have a code the forbids it. If your paladin lied, then he should have lost his powers. Like it or not, they are never supposed to. As I've said before the code is something that should be discussed beforehand with the DM as the one in the PHB is very vague and not appropriate to every campaign/situation. They are guidlines really. For a VERY good example read the link I posted to 'Tales of the Wyre'. The Paladin in that has been put thru all sorts thus far and has not lost his powers because of the campaign setting he is in, (you'd have to read it to see why). If we were to just argue about what it says in the book then I wouldn't have much of an arguement however they are just books which we use to play the game. Every word in them is not the be all and end all of everything in D&D, it is subject to campaign setting, players and DM's.

I would say that 75% of all paladin are miss played, either because the player doesn't understand the way a lawful good character (times 10)should act or because the DM doesn't monitor the paladin and doesn't keep him in check. Or maybe this just hasn't been defined pre-game which sadly is probably the most truest case.

Also, I don't mind having a nice civil debate, but please don't compare me to a borg Not intended to be uncivil you just said that something was ingrained in you, I just suggested you open your mind a bit and let's try to keep this to PHK. I know that there are other paladins of other alignments, but the main question on this thread was about the basic paladin from the PHK, let's keep the focus there, otherwise, this will get out of hand.

I don't particularly want this to get out of hand either and it's been good having this debate with, (this has got to be the most energy I've put into one topic.......go post count go!!!).

In the end I suppose Paladins are great in some campaigns and are just not in others and once again I'll state that this should be discussed by all and agreed on BEFORE you start playing. Take a look at some of the people who are for and you'll see that they're nowhere near as bad as some might make out. A few are in some of the most prominent story hours which must count for something.

I seem to recall that there was an arguement regarding the maturity of the players and DM when it came to involving Paladins in play and I think this has some weight to it, they are complex characters to play and thus any group should seriously consider this, (and Clerics also, they still have some explaining to do IMO!).

 

[Morpheus]

Do you remember the scene in Army of Darkness when the evil Ash is created and he goes on and on until he says, "Goody two-shoes! Goody two-shoes!" Well, he's talking about paladins right there. Then, the "good" Ash replies with what all players wish they could say after shooting the evil Ash, "Good. Bad. I'm the one with the gun." It's a question of absolutes and not all players see the game that way.

 

[Darmanicus]

Do you remember the scene in Army of Darkness when the evil Ash is created and he goes on and on until he says, "Goody two-shoes! Goody two-shoes!" Well, he's talking about pladins right there. Then, the "good" Ash replies with what all players wish they could say after shooting the evil Ash, "Good. Bad. I'm the one with the gun." It's a question of absolutes and not all players see the game that way.

Great film.....and I loved that scene.

The other great was in Evil Dead 2......

Demon bitch - "I'll swallow yer soul, I'll swallow yer soul, I'll swallow yer soul...."

Ash - "Swallow this", (inserts shotgun into demon bitch's mouth), BOOOOM!

Classic.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Great film.....and I loved that scene.

The other great was in Evil Dead 2......

Demon bitch - "I'll swallow yer soul, I'll swallow yer soul, I'll swallow yer soul...."

Ash - "Swallow this", (inserts shotgun into demon bitch's mouth), BOOOOM!

Classic.

Actually, wasn't if a BOOM stick

Anyway, I think we are ont the same page now. In the game that I play in, we could only start out as a rogue or a fighter, (yeah, it kinda sucked) we had to find the other classes. Of course, everyone designed characters based on the fact that they would find the class they wanted eventually. Now, the moral of the story, some idiot always brings it upon themselves to finish off the party. If there is a rogue, someone will play a mage, if there is no fighter class, some one will fill in, if there is no healer, last man standing will play a cleric. In this group, for some reason, there has always been that one person who said, 'I'm LG, I'm going to be a paladin,' we were happy when he died.

He took another path, but another person who died with him took up the mantle of LG. There will always be some one who tries to balance thae party and in the case of the Paladin, you just can't do it. It is really hard to have a rogue in the party and a paladin.

Rogue: I got the information we needed.

Paladin: How did you do that?

Rogue: *Bluff* bought it off an orphan.

Paladin: *sense motive* you liar, we can not use that, it has been tainted by your underhandedness.

Having a rogue in the party gives you options and is usually not a problem (unless they start down the assassin path or start stealing fro the party, which seems to happen a lot), but having a paladin in the party means that you as a party have a higher standard to how you play because he can't do things the way others do.

 

[Darmanicus]

Actually, wasn't if a BOOM stick It was indeed a BOOM stick, "Shop smart, shop S-Mart!!!".

Anyway, I think we are ont the same page now. In the game that I play in, we could only start out as a rogue or a fighter, (yeah, it kinda sucked) we had to find the other classes. Of course, everyone designed characters based on the fact that they would find the class they wanted eventually. Now, the moral of the story, some idiot always brings it upon themselves to finish off the party. If there is a rogue, someone will play a mage, if there is no fighter class, some one will fill in, if there is no healer, last man standing will play a cleric. In this group, for some reason, there has always been that one person who said, 'I'm LG, I'm going to be a paladin,' we were happy when he died.

He took another path, but another person who died with him took up the mantle of LG. There will always be some one who tries to balance thae party and in the case of the Paladin, you just can't do it. It is really hard to have a rogue in the party and a paladin.

Rogue: I got the information we needed.

Paladin: How did you do that?

Rogue: *Bluff* bought it off an orphan.

Paladin: *sense motive* you liar, we can not use that, it has been tainted by your underhandedness.

Having a rogue in the party gives you options and is usually not a problem (unless they start down the assassin path or start stealing fro the party, which seems to happen a lot), but having a paladin in the party means that you as a party have a higher standard to how you play because he can't do things the way others do.

Our DM only allows to play good or straight neutral characters so maybe we have an easier time of playing with Paladins in the group. If I was that Rogue in the example above I would have turned to the Paladin and said "I'm sorry I don't want to reveal my sources because that's my business and not yours, I don't go prying into everything you do so I would appreciate it if you didn't pry yourself" Or you could just simply state "None of your business". There's loads of ways around the Paladin just so long as when he Detects Evil you do not happen to be tainted!

We have an NPC Rogue in our world who pops up from time to time who knows my Paladin. Now I know he's pretty dodgy but he's not evil and therefore I'm not on his case all the time. A Paladin should expect that the people around him for the most part simply cannot live up to his standards and shouldn't force that burden on others.

I just hope Paladins will be tolerated more in the future. As someone said it's not just them that can piss the rest of the group off the Rogue can too when he insists on robbing everybody/thing blind and gets the rest of the party involved as a result of his actions.

 

[NeoDarke]

Rogue: I got the information we needed.

Paladin: How did you do that?

Rogue: *Bluff* bought it off an orphan.

Paladin: *sense motive* you liar, we can not use that, it has been tainted by your underhandedness.

Umm... would I be the only Paladin who wouldn't ask how the rogue got it? I mean he's a rogue for trying out load. What you don't know can't hurt you, or your party. I'd be more of "Great! Now we can get out of here."

 

[Dagger75]

I like playing paladins I just never really get the chance.

Last time I played a paladin I felt like I was screwed by the DM cause he didn't want me to play one and the party wasn't very supporitive.

I hate to admit it but it seems if the party doesn't want a paladin in the group you might as well play something else. Even if you don't play a jerk type and thats sad. I never felt like I coudn't play a rogue or a ranger but a paladin you need to get confirmed by the senate or something like that. Plus it always seem they try to make you fail. Maybe thats just the groups I play in.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Umm... would I be the only Paladin who wouldn't ask how the rogue got it? I mean he's a rogue for trying out load. What you don't know can't hurt you, or your party. I'd be more of "Great! Now we can get out of here."

Well, a good paladin, and by good I mean one who plays one to the letter and intent of the code not LG, we already know he is that, would ask where information came from. This would be an example of a paladin who fell into the 75% catagory of not being played properly.

Sorry man, if you are a paladin and you know for sure that the player is a rogue, you have an obligation to not steal and to take information from someone who might steal, you have an obligation to stear them towards another end, to bring them to the light as it were.

Now, if the rogue never did anything underhanded in front of the paladin and he didn't know he was a rogue, he could easily take the information and not worry about his oath, but to say, 'Great! Now we can get out of here," is just taking the easy way out and that is not what a paladin is all about.

Sucks having a paladin and a rogue in the party cause it really limits the rogue. Of course your DM can turn a blind eye to this kinda thing cause in real life if someone told you this you, 90% of us would be like, 'Great! Now we can get out of here," and that is why paladins are not played properly, cause DMs and PCs use them for smite evil abilities and put the oath to the back burner. This is even more true when the game has very little role-playing and a lot of 'munchkining'

As a paladin you have a obligation to guide others and not do wrong, whether it is wrong you have done or others have done. By taking information gotten through less than honest means, you might as well have beat the man yourself to get the information.

Think of John Wilkes Booth as an example. Once he shot Lincoln and fled he was taken in by a doctor and treated. The doctor was put on trial for treason because of his involvement in helping John Wilkes Booth. Now I am not suggesting that the doctor was a paladin, but the context of the story is the same. He should not have aided John Wilkes Booth because he had killed Lincoln. Now you could argue that as a healer he should have valued life and that gets into grey areas, but that is when the PC tries to devine from the DM if it is breaking the oath to heal him or not. In this case the doctor had a rat bastard DM

Well, I'm sure I'll get plenty of replies over that loosely based senerio, but if you look to it to determine whether you as a paladin should do something as trival as taking aid from a man whom you know had gotten it from a less than honest source, then you too are just as guilty of the crime.

Can't do the crime, don't play the class.

 

[DM-Rocco]

I like playing paladins I just never really get the chance.

Last time I played a paladin I felt like I was screwed by the DM cause he didn't want me to play one and the party wasn't very supporitive.

I hate to admit it but it seems if the party doesn't want a paladin in the group you might as well play something else. Even if you don't play a jerk type and thats sad. I never felt like I coudn't play a rogue or a ranger but a paladin you need to get confirmed by the senate or something like that. Plus it always seem they try to make you fail. Maybe thats just the groups I play in.

You get the same on the other end of the stick, hard to play an assassin in most games. While they are not black listed as much as paladins, they do get a bad rap. You are right, you pretty much need everyones permission to make a paladin.

Correction - you can make a paldin anytime, just can't play them most of the time

 

[CrusaderX]

Well, a good paladin, and by good I mean one who plays one to the letter and intent of the code not LG, we already know he is that, would ask where information came from. This would be an example of a paladin who fell into the 75% catagory of not being played properly.

Sorry man, if you are a paladin and you know for sure that the player is a rogue, you have an obligation to not steal and to take information from someone who might steal, you have an obligation to stear them towards another end, to bring them to the light as it were.

I completely disagree. Paladins have to be Lawful Good and follow a code of honor. That's it. And it really needs to be stressed here that not all codes are the same. It should go without saying, but Paladins need not be mindless clones of one another. If a Paladin is Lawful Good and follows a code, he's a Paladin, regardless of whether he does things your way or not.

One of my favorite role-models for Paladins is Samurai Jack. Jack isn't a Paladin, of course, but he's definitely a Lawful Good warrior with a strong code of honor. The Paladin similarities are very apparent. So what Jack can do, as far as most moral decisions go, my Paladins can do.

If Lawful Good Jack received crucial information from the Chaotic Scotsman, Jack definitely would not say "we can not use that, it has been tainted by your underhandedness".

Neither would my Paladin. Jack, like my Paladin, would use that information, and go kick evil's butt. He wouldn't appove of the Chaotic character's methods, but he would also be wise enough (Paladins are usually big on Wisdom, after all) to see the bigger picture here. Such a Paladin is not being wrongly-played, by any stretch of the imagination.