Why Paladins Rock

[Endur]

ummm, errrr, I thought playing a Paladin that clanks and ruins the rest of the players in the game's hiding and move silently checks was required for every D&D game.

If your party is stealthly, you'll avoid all the combats and miss experience. You'll also miss the experience of having the monsters surprise the party and ambush you first. You'll also miss the opportunity for the cleric to cast raise dead on a party that is constantly ambushed.

Game would be no fun without Paladins.

 

[Torm]

Ok. I guess we can strke "paladins" from your portfolio now..... Who's gonna be the "god of paladins" now???

No, no, no! I haven't even posted on ENWorld in the last 24 hours, except a couple of posts in the Ideal Gaming Circle thread. That pesky Bane was sitting outside using my wireless connection up until about 30 minutes ago, when I spotted and Smote Him. Again. This is getting to be a real problem.

Kindly disregard this thread. Thanks.


(As an aside, yes I know that wouldn't really work that way, and I would have my wireless connection secured - if I really had one. )

 

[Goblyn]

I don't really have anything to add; I just wanted to see how many posts fewer than Crothian I have.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I don't really have anything to add; I just wanted to see how many posts fewer than Crothian I have.

Answer: A lot.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I'm gonna bite and I'll even go on a limb to critique your perception of stealth.

Stealth is used to scout paths, observe dangers and spot weaknesses. Then the scout returns and presents info for planning.

Stealth is suboptimal when everyone and their monkey moves in a clump, horses whinying, armour banging and voices chattering. If we don't like armour then we can always ditch fighters, clerics and paladins; but just don't ever get into a decent fight.

Perhaps the DM will run a rogue campaign and by popular request, have a Paladin castle be the bad guys?

 

[Patman21967]

We had a paladin once in a game where I was a player who didn't have any armour, so he didn't clank around, but he did have a sock puppet both in character and out of character as a prop. He was pretty crazy, and should have lost his paladinhood, but the DM felt sorry for him I guess. At least he sometimes agreed to do good acts, when he wasn't talking to his sock puppet. My Neutral Good enchanter basically had to take over the moral authority spot, which wasn't easy with 4 Chaotic Neutral characters who committed acts that would make Chaotic Evil characters in the campaign I DM think twice. The party bard sang Inspire Courage...for the enemies. Then our fighter cut out his tongue and sliced off his fingers in vengeance. The druid threatened to murder the entire party in our sleep until I geased her to make her stop. The rogue began burning a caravan full of food we had waylaid from evil people that I was trying to distribute to the starved villagers. I talked to him in character, and rolled Diplomacy and he ignored me. Then I charmed him and he said it was agaisnt his nature not to burn the food and called for an opposed Charisma check. See what happens when your paladin goes bad! The world needs paladins, and that is something that a treacherous deity like Torm could simply never understand. Why, just today I saw you trying to min/max a murderous Chaotic Evil character. Now Cyric, there's an upstanding fellow.

By the way, the adventuring party I mentioned above was actually not made up, much to my chagrin...

you know...I tried that once, but all my socks stick together for some unknown reason.....

 

[scourger]

I never saw a paladin in a d20 game until I allowed aasimar paladin as a race-class combo without the +1 ECL. I want the players to play good PCs. That +2 to WIS & CHA along with darkvision sure gets 'em to play the pallys. My current game has had 2 and may be getting another--as a replacement, sure, 'cause it's frickin' dangerous to be at the front swinging a weapon!

 

[VirgilCaine]

Personally, I dislike full plate. And half-plate.
Why would I pay 1,600 gold for two more points of armor bonus compared to banded mail?

Thats 1,400 gold, thats four potions of cure moderate wounds/delay poison and four of spider climb. Or it's almost two first level wands or Quaal's whip tokens. All kinds of nifty magical stuff to get with that much gold.

And you have to consider the wait for full plate--anyone who is skilled enough to make it, IMO, would have a loooong waiting list, like years long, of very hoity-toity nobles who want exquisite decorative flourishes and such, not just "plain" armor.

So you don't find many full plate or half-plate wearing Fighter or Blackguard villains in my campaigns, unless it's stolen or from another plane, like if an Azer made it or something.

Paladins I'm okay with. Just not plate wearing paladins.

 

[Klaus]

Well, while we're at it, Breastplate is just 3 points of AC below Full Plate, and you can move much faster, with less Armor Check Penalty. Make that a mithril breastplate and we're almost in stealth-mode territory, which any serious evil-hunter should consider.

 

[focallength]

thats because most people play lawful stupid not lawful good.