But... where does the church get its finances?
Donations are great, but as one who has lived his entire life in a church culture, surrounded by profoundly religious, in many different places, those donations aren't going to cut it with a paladin's budget (and often don't for a church's own budget, as those who work them also sacrifice their own time for free to help cover expenses).
Not necessarily for good aligned outsiders... which they could suddenly have as patrons... :D
But... where does the church get its finances?
Donations are great, but as one who has lived his entire life in a church culture, surrounded by profoundly religious, in many different places, those donations aren't going to cut it with a paladin's budget (and often don't for a church's own budget, as those who work them also sacrifice their own time for free to help cover expenses).
It's not however the Paladin's responsibility to cover the church's finances. That's what the contributions of the faithful, the vineyards of the monks (A glass of Chaetau Iomedae anyone?:) (not the class kind), the farms run by the nuns are for.
It's the mission of the Church to support the Paladin, not the other way around. And they need to support the training of his replacement, because the lifespan of the average Paladin... is going to be a short one.
And be real... the market for esoteric wands is rather limited.
Gotcha, so all paladins of lesser deities with broken down and broke churches should beat up the churchgoers and steal their zero to two coppers a piece.
That makes perfect sense.
I'm not going to dignify that with any more of a response than this post.But... where does the church get its finances?
Donations are great, but as one who has lived his entire life in a church culture, surrounded by profoundly religious, in many different places, those donations aren't going to cut it with a paladin's budget (and often don't for a church's own budget, as those who work them also sacrifice their own time for free to help cover expenses).
It's not however the Paladin's responsibility to cover the church's finances. That's what the contributions of the faithful, the vineyards of the monks (A glass of Chaetau Iomedae anyone?:) (not the class kind), the farms run by the nuns are for.
It's the mission of the Church to support the Paladin, not the other way around. And they need to support the training of his replacement, because the lifespan of the average Paladin... is going to be a short one.
And be real... the market for esoteric wands is rather limited.
Gotcha, so all paladins of lesser deities with broken down and broke churches should beat up the churchgoers and steal their zero to two coppers a piece.
That makes perfect sense.
Why wouldn't a paladin help out the church of his deity? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Saying he wouldn't help out his church because his church funds him makes no sense for the broke churches.
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But... where does the church get its finances?
Donations are great, but as one who has lived his entire life in a church culture, surrounded by profoundly religious, in many different places, those donations aren't going to cut it with a paladin's budget (and often don't for a church's own budget, as those who work them also sacrifice their own time for free to help cover expenses).
Tactics... the church culture you live in is a culture of the modern world. A far far different one than a medieval world where raw cash was not the THING it is today and churches DID sponsor crusaders and sent them to war.
The financing was done by the nobles who took their knights into war seeking both the blessing of the Church and the physical rewards from the heathens they would conquer. The churches who did so wound up quite wealthy from their share of the spoils. Also keep in mind that churches owned significant chunks of land from royal grants, and earned income from them in the exact same feudal ways that landed nobles did. The film Ladyhawke has some useful portrayals of this.
Part of your disconnect perhaps may be from not playing in the days where Paladins.. 1. had a strict limit on the number AND type of magic items they could retain, and 2. were expected to render a 10 percent tithe of their TOTAL wealth to a patron church.
There are many deities, what about the small towns of lesser deities with no nobles who follow those deities?
But... where does the church get its finances?
Donations are great, but as one who has lived his entire life in a church culture, surrounded by profoundly religious, in many different places, those donations aren't going to cut it with a paladin's budget (and often don't for a church's own budget, as those who work them also sacrifice their own time for free to help cover expenses).
Tactics... the church culture you live in is a culture of the modern world. A far far different one than a medieval world where raw cash was not the THING it is today and churches DID sponsor crusaders and sent them to war.
... so, too, is the world the typical PF paladin lives in. There, raw cash is a thing, a very fundamental one, which translates directly into raw power via magic.
The financing was done by the nobles who took their knights into war seeking both the blessing of the Church and the physical rewards from the heathens they would conquer. The churches who did so wound up quite wealthy from their share of the spoils. Also keep in mind that churches owned significant chunks of land from royal grants, and earned income from them in the exact same feudal ways that landed nobles did. The film Ladyhawke has some useful portrayals of this.
... so kill creatures, and take there stuff?
(I mean, they give to the already-wealthy, so the already-wealthy can give it back to them... so they can give more stuff to the already-wealthy... so that makes it perfectly okay, right?)
Part of your disconnect perhaps may be from not playing in the days where Paladins.. 1. had a strict limit on the number AND type of magic items they could retain, and 2. were expected to render a 10 percent tithe of their TOTAL wealth to a patron church.
... or part of the disconnect is that the paladins of PF don't conform to a monolithic singular church akin to the medieval political clime, and instead belong to a huge range of churches, faiths, and groups, each of which have very different and disparate financial states that they happen to be in.
Point in fact, in medieval times, there was (for a paladin) but a single god in the world: all else was demons.
In PF, there are at least twenty - though about a third of those are entirely the enemy, so, let's call it ~15 - who are active, and in Golarion, it's closer to 200+ (and that's after you outright ignore all of the auto-evil categories and reduce based on rough split of "evil" v. "neutral" and "good" gods).
Many of those groups who do have paladins don't have the organization or size to rely upon donations of their people.
(Point in fact, the - admittedly very unusual - Paladin of Milani, is very much so funding his own non-church-sponsored enterprise.)
There are very worthwhile positions for a paladin in the world of commerce and wealth, I'd say. Certainly not the preponderance - that is, in my own head-canon, at least - why there aren't floods of paladin-created stuff. Many do go out and perish in glorious, glorious martyrdom. More to the point, such things as this are even more rare - the paladin must have a specific archetype, must have the craft wand feat, must have gotten to a point where adventuring is unreasonable for some reason (which really isn't that hard, but still), and must have crafted enough so that it can be sold and it can be sold for profit. (He could, depending on your reading of the rules, work with someone else as well. I'm not saying whether he could or not for sure, however, because that's the argument we just left, and I'm not interested in provoking both groups.)
But a paladin would do it. Especially if it was needed for his church and those who came after. It doesn't matter how violent or how boring, a paladin has a duty. That duty varies from paladin to paladin, but always involves fighting evil. Sometimes the best way to combat evil is to do so financially.
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This is where you and I agree to disagree. A Paladin who is the least bit able is bound by duty to be fighting the good fight. If he can't fight on the front lines, he should leading those who can. Death should be the only retirement for a Paladin's call to battle, unless he renounces his dedication (and his Paladinhood)
I wish to stress that I am totally fine with you and your gaming groups going that way. That sounds cool!
But that's not PF standard.
I, on the other hand, can think of something like half a dozen (non-fallen) paladins off the top of my head that are no longer in "active service" (in combat) in Pathfinder.
- Absalom (Rochae Swiftblade, teacher of other combatants; Sir Rekkart Cole, a noble citizen of that city)
- Sandpoint (Sir Jasper Korvaski, Gaven Deverin - note: neither of these are heroes of the goblin attacks, nor the heroes of the games; the latter is simply a brewer)
- River Kingdoms (Lord Parsall - I linked him before; it could be argued he's on a "crusade", he's just going about it really, really slowly)
- Andoran (Codwin I of Augustana, leader of the nation, not the army)
That's only a few. I'd imagine that many (such as Queen Galifrey who combines the role of monarch and activist) are, in fact, front-liners now and always, but certainly not all, at least in published PF works.
The other kind of paladins are pretty awesome, too... just not the current standard thereof. :)