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Erastil is not a tree hugging elf bow god.

he is a patron of hunters.

a paladin of Erastil is more like a hunter than a knight.

why else is he depicted as a Moose Man with a Longbow?

Moose, like deer, are commonly hunted game, and the longbow, is also the weapon of a hunter. and Thus, Erastil is a symbolic representation of the concept of the hunter.

and Humans are more likely to worship Erastil than elves are.

elves are a rarity

and have very different views than most.

I love this post.

The way its written is just awsome.

I'm personally curious as to what the social structure was around these restrictions/attitudes in real life. Being charitable, I'll acknowledge there's a sense of fairness that using ranged weapons against someone violates, but then we enter the real world and psychic indulgences like that don't last very long against harsh reality, so who benefited from these codes?

As far as D&D is concerned, there's no reason for a Paladin to artificially limit himself this way.

The history is really neat concerning archery, Pritty much knights didnt like getting shot with bows. So they called it cowardly shunned the weapon and made it illegal threw the pope. No one but Knights listened, and peasants kept shooting them with arrows. The argument was, "we put down the bows when you get off your horse and take off all that metal."

I did kinda leave out that samuri "one of the most honorable organizations in history" were master horse bowmen.

but on the paladin archer thing, please if you play one. Please have a roleplaying reason for doing it. It damages my soul to see the class abused for min/max purposes.

deleted double post

why must we restrict paladins any further.

the code is already prohibitively restrictive enough.

by common lore, we can say that any weapon except a sword was deemed dishonorable.

but look at how many knights are portrayed using non sword based weapons.

because unless its an elven paladin from some tree hugging elf bow god.

Paladins running around with a bow as there primary attack is silly and is only used as a manipulation of the rules to maximize there output.

James Smith 870 wrote:

1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them

The problem with Chivalry is that assuming Knights actually followed it's rules is like assuming that 50's teenagers acted like Wally and the Beaver, or that Sheriffs in the old West acted like John Wayne.

This is very true, but unlike Knights. Paladins actually do loose the divine favor of there god if they dont follow the rules.

James Smith 870 wrote:

1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them

Did medieval knights face harpies, dragons, beholders, rocs and vrocks?

Given those monsters it would be lawfull for a paladin to use a bow, but against giants, ogers, trolls, and Antipaladins?

1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good
alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies
if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect
legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in
need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic
ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
"coppied from the CRB"

Act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth)

after looking at a few Paladin builds im finding this increasing trend for paladin archers.

Its in common lore that it is dishonarble to use a bow against a knight or worthy oponent.

IE a knight may not shoot a bow at another knight but must meet him with lance or sword.

A peasant may not shoot a knight with a bow for he is a lesser. "unless the knight carries a bow of course"

So under chivalric law, wouldnt a Paladin useing a bow against a non ranged oponent be violateing there code of conduct?

Edit/ added
1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them