Why aren't paladins liked?

[Trickstergod]

(Look back a few pages and reread the Batman/Superman comparison. It's spot-on, IMO.)

Or, heck, one of the best sources of inspiration for paladins out there, Arthurian myth.

Just finished up "The Once and Future King," myself all of about an hour ago.

Little geek that I am I was all throughout it giving a mental checklist of "probably a fighter," or "probably a paladin," because some of the things done are quite heinous indeed. Bedivere lops off his ladies head. Gawain kills a woman in a rage. Lancelot betrays his idol and friend Arthur by sleeping with his wife. Arthur kills a whole shipload of babies.

Not to mention the evil members of the court, such as Mordred and Arglevaine (or whatever the fellows name is; currently dead tired and the books not handy at the moment), who murder their own mother.

Yet there's still the pure members of the Round Table, such as Galahad, of course, but also Bors, Percival and Gareth. Associating with a group that's downright Chaotic at times, what with Lancelots well-known philandering and Gawain's vicious rages. Heck, Arthur, who but for one particularly atrocious sin, still comes off as being the epitome of a paladin, yet ultimately relies on Gawain to lean on in his later years.

It need be remembered that paladins embody compassion and mercy; if they didn't, they'd be Lawful Neutral, or laying the smack down on Chaos over Evil. They're also strongly influenced by the fact that Might doesn't make Right. They won't turn a blind eye to evil, but generally know a decent fellow when they see one, and, in my mind, would prefer that individual be changed via example as opposed to force. As Arthurian myth shows, paladins can truck with those of an ale-sotted, adulterous nature, so long as they're striving for something more.

I personally love paladins to death. Probably my favorite class, if not clerics. I do, however, see where some folk might be a bit grumblesome about them. Still, that's either from bad DM's, bad players, or just a limited interpretation of the class, in my opinion.

A little flip through something with Superman and Batman, or Arthurian knights, will show that paladins aren't always the big downers people make them out to be.

Why, Neil Gaimans "Chivalry" puts Galahad into a most splendid light, and is a wonderful little story to boot...

 

[Thanee]

C'est Moi
Sung by Lancelot

...
To love and desire he ought to be unsparkable,
The ways of the flesh should offer no allure.
But where in the world
Is there in the world
A man so untouched and pure?
(C'est moi!)

...
I've never strayed
From all I believe;
I'm blessed with an iron will.
Had I been made
The partner of Eve,
We'd be in Eden still.

Didn't quite work out, eh?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Tuzenbach]

"Because good is dumb!"


------Dark Helmet

 

[Acid_crash]

Just ask the question: What would Superman Do?

 

[FireLance]

Just ask the question: What would Superman Do?

Unfortunately, "Use X-ray vision" is not an option for most paladins.

 

[Ukyo the undead]

The paladin are disliked, as everybody already said, because:

1)His style of play potentially cripple everybody else style.

2)He can be replaced by any other class, and if this class is a cleric, even if from the same deity, the group will have a more party oriented(i.e. useful) character.

Of course this problem can be easily solved, as long as we free ourselves from the "PHB says..." chain.

Use the paladin as a combat-focused cleric. Then use the cleric alignment headlines to figure out the paladin´s code.

 

[Oscar carramiñana]

The big trouble is a paladin cannot ally with evils in hide missions are bad Pcs and even cannot lie, when a BBG surrender's the paladin must take prisoner and a prisoner is a heavy burden in a party not all PC's in a party are L/G

 

[tetsujin28]

But in all my years of playing and DMing D&D, and in reading various forums on D&D, I've never seen anyone actually happy to have a paladin in the group.

Are you kidding me? Paladins rawk! We had three in our group in our last D&D game!

 

[Count Arioch the 28t]

There are two reasons why paladins aren't well liked:

1. Too many immature players who think being a paladin is a liscence to kill, and act leven dumber than a chaotic evil barbarian would, on account that a chaotic evil barbarian wouldn't be killing random people for odd reasons.

2. Too many immature DMs with some sort of chip on their shoulder who put their paladins in rediculous contrived situations to "prove that paladins are stupid".

The truth is, Paladins have a lot of stigam attached to them, mostly from those two groups. A good aligned party would have no problems with taking a surrendering prisoner to justice, in fact, as a DM, you should slide them to neutral if they make a habit of not accepting surrender. (Not all the way to evil, unless they were particularly creative in their surrendering BBEG habits ) Not being able to lie is not a problem in the least, there is never an instance where you are required to lie at any time in a game. (Silence is not a lie. Telling someone to go screw themself is not a lie, it's a command. Telling them "I can't say" is not a lie, especially when you really can't say.)

(For the inevitable "What if lying to the BBEG is the only way to save the world?" question, the answer is "That would never happen except under theoretical circumstances. In any game, there are multiple choices that could result in sucess. If you do that scenario as a DM, you are railroading, and railroading is bad DMing.)

On the other hand, you can't kill someone just because they are evil. You can watch that person, but you can't slaughter them. Even if you catch them doing something evil, killing them isn't a good idea, unless that is the only answer. If you kill someone for stealing, you are lawful evil.

A Paladin can use stealth, flanking, sneak attacks, favorable terrain, and other tactics. A paladin can have sex, enjoy a beer with his buddies, have nice clothes and gear, and take his share of the treasure. (Although being charitable is a good thing, being charitable to the extreme that you lose your ability to fight evil is not wise, you're a crusader, it's the priest's job to help feed the poor, you're keeping the poor from being eaten by ogres. You're helping, but in a different way.)

 

[kirinke]

hmmm. for really well-thought out paladin characters, check out Elizabeth Moon's 'The deed of Paksenarion'. Her portrayal of paladinhood is really pretty good. She does make them quite human, with all the flaws associated with humanity, but they continue to strive to do good, with the emphasis on good, rather than pure law.

she also portrays a fairly decent fantasy military.