Class Acts: Paladin Archetypes (PFRPG) PDF

This pdf is 4 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 2 pages of content, so let's take a look at the 3 new archetypes herein!

-The Champion of Law: I am THE LAAAAWWWW! Replace detect evil with chaos, gain a strong lawful aura and automatically break free from compulsions that would violate your lawfulness and replace divine bond with urban tracking. Ok, I guess, but rather bland.

-The Knight-Zealot: Expend to smites to smite hostile non-good creatures in exchange for ALL mercies and lay on hands - bad exchange. Replace divine bond with adding your cha-mod to strength and gain bonus spells as if cha was two level higher. This one, though, is rather strong so it evens out. Okay archetype, I guess, but again nothing too exciting.

-Peacebringer: Now this one is interesting indeed in that it completely changes the base-class! The archetype gains no proficiency with armors or weapons, but gains a ki-pool, which he can use to calm emotions, use guidance, gain +4 to AC or the benefits of improved unarmed strike and touch of serenity, replacing smite evil. They also only get 1+ cha-mod channel energies per day, but may use them in an interesting way: At 7th level, they may affect those hit by channel energy as though they were subject to lay on hands. At 5th level, they may use ki to use lay on hands without expending the daily allotment of latter ability and at 9th level, they may add sanctuary effects temporarily to those affected by lay on hands. At 11th level, it gets interesting, though, allowing the Peacebringer to maximize lay on hands, even in tandem with their channeled lay on hands. However, as the name suggests, the archetype may never deal lethal damage, pain-effects etc. A cool archetype with stellar mechanics, a roleplaying challenge - what more could you want?

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Abandoned Art's two-column no-frills standard and the pdf has neither bookmarks, nor art, but needs none at this length. The first two archetypes, in my book, are just boring and I was ready to consign this pdf to a mediocre rating...until I read the Peacebringer, essentially an exalted character that is not broken and interesting both from a roleplayer's perspective and in that he can fill the healer's role rather well. The mechanic execution of that one is excellent and 5 stars + seal of approval-worthy. My final verdict will clock in on a middle-ground thanks to this awesome archetype, at 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

This product introduces 3 new archetypes for the paladin, the Champion of Law, the Knight-Zealot, and the Peacebringer.
The Champion of Law (as might be expected) essentially trades in their standard Detect Evil Ability for Detect Chaos and their Aura of Good for an Aura of Law. They gain an interesting ability to track in an Urban environment using the Diplomacy skill, but it comes at the hefty price of trading out their Divine Grace. Their Uncompromising Will ability helps compensate for this loss by giving them enhanced mental protections, eventually evolving into a full-blown Mind Blank ability at 17th level. All in all, certainly not a bad archetype, but it was just lacking a certain something to really catch my attention. Maybe I just haven't found the right game for him yet.
The Knight-Zealot made me wince at first as read the flavor text, visions of the penultimate "Lawful Stupid" paladin dancing in my head. Turns out the Archetype isn't so bad, though it's pretty limited as well. The Knight-Zealot trades out Lay on Hands, his Mercies, and the Divine Bond class feature to gain the ability to expand the usefulness of his smite ability by targeting anyone who's just non-good (instead of specifically evil) by burning an extra use of Smite. He also adds his CHA modifier to his STR score, and treats his CHA as 2 points higher for the purposes of bonus spells. You'll definitely squeeze a few extra points of damage out of this archetype, but, even moreso than the Champion of Law, I'm not quite sure it justifies what you're giving up.
The final Archetype, the Peacebringer, is the largest, and most complete feeling, archetype, offering a whole new spin on the way the paladin works. The Peacebringer gains a ki pool and numerous new ways to heal or protect the party. I'm actually planning on doing a little third-party mash up and utilizing this guy in an upcoming game session by using this build and enhancing his ki-pabilities with Legendary Games "The Way of Ki" (another cool product you should probably check out). This guy actually made me decide to bump my original 3 star rating to a 4, he's that neat. He really feels like a healer with a bit more complexity and usefulness, with elements reminiscent of the half-orc Redeemer archetype, or the aasimar archetype for a "peaceful" paladin, but much more complex and capable.