Why aren't paladins liked?

[ForceUser]

Properly roleplayed, Paladins add a lot to the game. They should hold their comrades to a higher standard, which can create conflict with less scrupulous partymembers. This conflict can be constructive and dramatic and add to the roleplaying experience, as it does in my campaign, or it can be divisive and onerous, as it does in other campaigns that I have heard of. For a Paladin to work well within a group, the players of the other characters need to work with the Paladin's player to create a good roleplaying atmosphere that advances the story - even if that story is about the constant contention between the Paladin and the party Rogue.

Paladins are roleplay-focused characters, which is good because in my experience they are not particularly impressive in combat. They are durable but typically not as ferocious an opponent as a Barbarian or Fighter. Still, they are a great addition to most campaigns, provided the player group is willing to make certain allowances for behavior and the DM is willing to put a great deal of effort into roleplaying moral and ethical dilemmas and fighting undead and evil outsiders.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Paladins are lawful good. Their code and religion make them even more lawful and good. Most people (and characters) are not lawful good. There's the problem.

Having a paladin severely limits what the other party members can do. A paladin doesn't generally treasure hunt, and they morally object to lying, stealing, cheating, fighting...things many people like to do in a game. It's hard to play a rogue when you have a paladin in the party. Paladins are also rather front-loaded (and it used to be much worse). And many people play them as being obnoxious. No one likes an overpowered character telling you what to do.

The paladin really ought to be a prestige class. Compared with all the other core base classes, it has no place in many campaigns.

 

[Haradim]

In addition to what's been posted, many players are trained to believe that Paladins are almost impossible to play 'properly', and that they will simply be hounded by the DM until they Fall.

Unfortunately, between players who really *are* bad at playing Paladins, and the mentioned DMs, most people don't seem to realise that Paladins really aren't all that hard to play or be around (unless you happen to be morally bankrupt, of course).

 

[Mr. Kaze]

As a DM and player, I don't tend to like Paladins for the following reasons...

- Paladin should not be a core class. Quite simply, its antithesis class of Blackguard is a prestige class that takes several levels of practicing being evil to really acheive -- but people can start off blessed just because they say so? Get real.

- Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any character claiming to have to be lawful and good in one of my campaigns is in for a rude awakening about the sorts of not-very-good-at-all that can be can per perpetrated in the name of the law, as well as the sorts of good intentions that try to get around proper procedure. (Not to point fingers, but just look at the president of the USA...)

- Low will save. (Blackguard, too.) C'mon, these folks are the stalwart heroes of their respective causes with even more stringent discipline requirements than clerics and they've got a weak will? Whatever.

- Mediocre advancement with artificial class restrictions. It's not like being a monk where you get cool stuff and are advancing high saves at pretty much every level.

- Reliance on a pantheon which I generally don't much care for anyway. Maybe it's my monotheistic upbringing and such, but I just don't care for stories where the "lawful good" gods aren't actively laying some righteous smiting on the forces of evil. So what if they die trying? They're telling their clerics and paladins to do likewise, aren't they? You don't see paladins delegating their crusades to farmers, do you? (As a DM, I resolved this with a bunch of readily available evil deities while all of the good deities are trying to smite the evil deities in dimensions where mortals who aren't wholly consumed by evil won't get hurt. Thus, evil outsiders can effectively hide behind a shield of untainted mortal souls, giving the good gods quite the moral quandry... mortals, however, have the assorted natural and ancestral spirits that they can call upon to avoid being victimized by the evil outsiders -- and not all of the evil outsiders like each other, so we don't really miss having a proper crusade at all.)

If we were to fix paladins (and blackguards), we'd merge them into a single class with different skill requirements (hide? in full plate?) kind of like how clerics are a single class regardless of alignment. And that class would probably look an awful lot like the Singh Rager from Oriental Adventures, but with "Detect opposed alignment", "Cure/Inflict light wounds" as a spell-like ability, and that divine grace thingy in there somewhere, too.

Thems my thoughts.
::Kaze (had a dwarven paladin in that computerized Temple of Elemental Evil. It didn't last. He fell from grace when the druid was invited into a drinking contest and she won. I think the script was "paladin not allowed to associate with people who can demonstrably hold their liquor," but it reads better as "no paladin of Moradin should ever let anybody else, much less an elfy-she-druid, win a drinking contest." The paladin got kicked out of the party after that.)

 

[Ranger REG]

I think the biggest problem is that most people who play Paladins end up playing them as arrogant jerks who want to tell everyone what to do.

That's half the problem. The second half is others' perception of the paladin. Some of us tend to think that being a paladin means you're automatically a self-righteous jerk that always see himself as being a better civilized individuals than a lowly fighter or rogue. Today's real-life society no longer idolize that kind of saintly hero that is prominent in the 1980's. Now it's anti-hero worship; characters whom do not fit the good-guy type (a criminal fugitive, drug dealer, etc.) that becomes a hero fighting the antagonists for one shining moment or two.

We can vote for a flawed US President, but we cannot perceive the existence of a flawed paladin.

 

[Dave Turner]

I see the question as "Superman vs. Batman".

Superman holds himself to strict standards, but doesn't expect Batman to. He would stop Batman from murdering someone, but lets him slide on lots of lesser moral issues like lying or stealing.

A paladin could take the same approach. As long as the roguish/less scrupulous members of the party were trying to achieve good results (in the moral sense), then why sweat the law/chaos details? The best way to integrate paladins into groups is to emphasize the "good" part of the alignment. Sadly, most focus on the "lawful" bit.

 

[Voadam]

Its the code and requirements for following the code.

One of my best friends is playing a paladin in our current game and it has worked out and been cool, but . . . there have been a number of times where I have to bend my character's action to fit in with him and a number of times where he has caused conflict because he believes his code wouldn't let him do something he thought was morally fine and a cool idea. It has lead to a lot of in character discussions of my character convincing him why it is a good thing to do my plan, which takes a lot of time and gets real annoying after a while.

If I wasn't as dedicated OOC to working with the party and him I would be tempted to say "fine we're leaving you behind then."

My friend on the other hand thinks the code is the coolest part about being a paladin in D&D.

Power wise I think they are fine, heavily Defensive with good saves, AC, and hit points, plus party powers of healing and moderate offense with some undead hunting orientation.

 

[ForceUser]

The best way to integrate paladins into groups is to emphasize the "good" part of the alignment. Sadly, most focus on the "lawful" bit.

You bring up a good point. In The Book of Exalted Deeds, it states that a Paladin must always choose Good over Law, if forced to choose. I think a lot of gamers don't understand the difference between righteousness and self-righteousness.

 

[Hida Bukkorosu]

wow, you'd think a paladin of a dwarf god would recieve special blessings for holding their liquor.

I mean, i'm sure moradin himself can probably hold his ale!

 

[Quasqueton]

First I would appreciate it if the two posters who made a comment on the president, please edit that out. Nuff said on that off topic item.

So, with all this baggage for the paladin, what does he bring to the party as a benefit that the cleric or fighter don't do better? Heck, even with the drawback to multiclassing a spellcaster, a LG fighter/cleric would seem more beneficial to a party than a straight paladin.

What game aspects of the class should a twink/powergamer play up?

Quasqueton