How many Paladins have you ever known in your games?

[Stik]

TETSNBN stands for "The EditionThat Shall Not Be Named."

Some of us old-school players are so unhappy with the products of WOTC that we would prefer to not acknowledge them as being any form of D&D, hence the name.

[Tempest]

Another reason why I dislike 3e... Those requirements were there to make them rare, an ideal to live up to... You had to be damn lucky to get one!

I can see that one both ways. I enjoyed restrictions to a certain extent, but they always seemed completely arbitrary, rather then for any real reason. Why can't anybody except human's play holy warriors exactally? I'm not trying to bash here, I just couldn't ever reconcile that away.

In third they removed ability score requirements true, but they were basically still there. The only difference is that now you can play a paladin who is terrible at his job alah his lacking ability scores if you really want.

Now, the later editions have fixed some of that, at the expense of the restrictions, they appear to be fighters with other abilities.

Bingo. Its not quite that bad, paladins still had fairly strong LG resrictions, but yeah, paladins weren't very distinctive. I thought they came out the worst in 4th edition of any edition.

The best paladin's I've ever seen have come from Pathfinder's Roleplaying game (based on the 3e OGL) Those paladins are terribly fun to play, and we saw two people want to play one in the span of a few gaming sessions (we were basically playtesting the rules, changing out characters at fairly rapid pace)

[ChaosImp]

TETSNBN stands for "The EditionThat Shall Not Be Named."

Some of us old-school players are so unhappy with the products of WOTC that we would prefer to not acknowledge them as being any form of D&D, hence the name.

Well I guess I'm okay then as C&C is from troll lord games not WOTC. Personally I like 1st and 2nd Edtion, 3rd for computer games and now C&C for pen and paper.

IMP

[LadyWinterWolf]

When first learning 3E, the first character I created was a female halfling paladin....long story, but she ended up being a fun character to play, and interacted with the rest of the party well. Basically, she was a paladin in training, mentored by a ghost paladin, and always looking for something to eat; and her helmet kept clanking down over her face.

However, I have gamed with others who played paladins and took their characters so seriously, they kept wanting to kill members of the party because they weren't up to the paladin's standards of "goodness". Annoying, to say the least. Came to the point we had to tell one member that he was no longer allowed to play a paladin in any of our games.

[Jenara]

However, I have gamed with others who played paladins and took their characters so seriously, they kept wanting to kill members of the party because they weren't up to the paladin's standards of "goodness". Annoying, to say the least. Came to the point we had to tell one member that he was no longer allowed to play a paladin in any of our games.

Now this is taking it way too far.. Killing someone who doesn't live by your ideals is just silly.. Surely doing that would be against the paladins code of conduct?

Now they wouldn't associate with evil people... but killing them... the problem is they'd kill an orc for being evil... why not a character?

I know, i just confused my own point!!

[LadyWinterWolf]

However, I have gamed with others who played paladins and took their characters so seriously, they kept wanting to kill members of the party because they weren't up to the paladin's standards of "goodness". Annoying, to say the least. Came to the point we had to tell one member that he was no longer allowed to play a paladin in any of our games.

Now this is taking it way too far.. Killing someone who doesn't live by your ideals is just silly.. Surely doing that would be against the paladins code of conduct?

Now they wouldn't associate with evil people... but killing them... the problem is they'd kill an orc for being evil... why not a character?

I know, i just confused my own point!!

The justification was mainly when it concerned treasure; the gamer wanted to keep what they found, the paladin wanted to donate it to charity. If the gamer refused, the paladin said it was the sin of greed. Yeah, I know, didn't make much sense to us too.

Another time, the party got divided, the part of the party that the paladin was in got attacked, and had to fight without the help of the other members of the party who were elsewhere. When they finally got altogether, the paladin said he needed to kill the other party members for not staying with the party, and not helping to fight. Didn't let him kill anyone, cause we thought that was ridiculous logic on his part.

[Wizard_of_Wumbo]

that guy didnt even know what the paladin class was about...i was thinking about something (i know, thats pretty dangerous) and i wondered why aladins had to be lawful good, not all deities are lawful good, so why is the paladin lawful good? this comes up miore in 3rd edition for me, i had a player want to be a paladin of ehlonna (spelt that wrong) the goddess of nature, the problem was that the deitie is Chaotic Neutral, not lawful good. So i said that until further notice it was ok for a paladin to have the alignment of the deitie they choose.

i dont think that the paladin should be consstrained to a certain alignment anyway, i think that a code of conduct based on the deitie would be much or suitable.

just throwing out my 2 cents.

[Ismaels-Legacy]

I had one of my character smote by a PC paladin! Granted I went into a home where a vampire had taken a young girl hostage and killed her because she was bitten! How was I supposed to know she could be saved? I was a barbarian!

[Wizard_of_Wumbo]

i would claim shinanigans and say that you were playing by character knowledge! its good roleplaying damnit

[Jenara]

I had one of my character smote by a PC paladin! Granted I went into a home where a vampire had taken a young girl hostage and killed her because she was bitten! How was I supposed to know she could be saved? I was a barbarian!

I probably would have given you XP for good role playing, lol

[Crimson-Kobold]

i dont think that the paladin should be consstrained to a certain alignment anyway, i think that a code of conduct based on the deitie would be much or suitable.

just throwing out my 2 cents.

The only alignment restriction fits would be Lawful, IMO, due to how strictly they have to follow their tenants to maintain their powers.

The racial restriction never really made a ton of sense for me either. Smacks of a rule for the sake of balance.

[greenknight]

[The only alignment restriction fits would be Lawful, IMO, due to how strictly they have to follow their tenants to maintain their powers.

I've seen rules for Paladins of any alignment, and my first experience with that was with the 2nd Ed AD&D rules. There are people who will always believe that Paladins must be LG, and if you read through the intro for the class through AD&D and even 3e, I can agree with that.

But personally, I think the whole "Holy Champion" concept can and should be applied to followers of any martial God, and any race. So I believe there could be Paladins of Selvetarm (a CE Drow God from 2nd Ed AD&D Forgotten Realms), for example. They would be very different from Human LG Paladins, but they would still qualify as Holy Champions. In fact, Selvetarm's Specialty Priests (Spiderswords) pretty much are CE Paladins, according to Demihuman Dieties.

[Jenara]

[The only alignment restriction fits would be Lawful, IMO, due to how strictly they have to follow their tenants to maintain their powers.

I've seen rules for Paladins of any alignment, and my first experience with that was with the 2nd Ed AD&D rules. There are people who will always believe that Paladins must be LG, and if you read through the intro for the class through AD&D and even 3e, I can agree with that.

But personally, I think the whole "Holy Champion" concept can and should be applied to followers of any martial God, and any race. So I believe there could be Paladins of Selvetarm (a CE Drow God from 2nd Ed AD&D Forgotten Realms), for example. They would be very different from Human LG Paladins, but they would still qualify as Holy Champions. In fact, Selvetarm's Specialty Priests (Spiderswords) pretty much are CE Paladins, according to Demihuman Dieties.

In the case of Demi Humans, the Paladins handbook did consider this even in the days of 2e... Non humans and other alignments would act differently, have a totally separate ideal system, but yeah the "Holy Warrior" idea works for anyone... how would a ce champion act i wonder?

[Ismaels-Legacy]

Chaotic Evil would be rather nasty. They'd be domineering, abusive, and sadistic. I can only see this working as someone quite maniacal, like a mass murderer or a total anarchist. They'd delight in nothing more than watching the world burn....actually, now that I think about it, the Joker from The Dark Knight would be a good example of Chaotic Evil champion.

[greenknight]

how would a ce champion act i wonder?

For that, you need to flesh out your Gods. This is still a holy (or unholy, if you prefer) champion, and the character should follow the God's dictates. So a CE Champion will do whatever it is about the God he/she/it worships that makes that God CE.

That's one reason why a simple code of behavior won't work if you generalize the class this way. Each Paladin might well have a Code of Behavior, but it should change for each God.