Umbriere Moonwhisper's page

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

i admit a lot of my older characters were creepy and morally questionable. i am working on Tweaking Atsuko's background to remove the imperial servitude in later incarnations and reducing Umbriere's Frailty in future incarnations. i need time to make my characters less creepy. but it takes time to develop the change, and i started in the last 2 campaigns by playing Doctor Ivan Redwood, an Adult Male Doctor and Scientist, and Playing Ventus, a Sylph Squire with Rage issues whom is neither excessively fragile nor a slave, but a Tales of Graces Style knight academy cadet whom channeled her rage through her twin knives, and was bullied because her rage created thunderstorms, and because bullies wanted to get her in trouble, so she became a squire to vent her frustration into something constructive, after being invited by a dwarven knight instructor named Hans known for similar rage issues. Ventus may have been young for a sylph, but that was because she was a squire, not a fully fledged knight, and to build attachment to Hans, and she has neither a 5 con nor a life of slavery, 12 Con before items, sure. Slayer levels, definitely.

That's good to hear, and I shouldn't have brought it up. I deleted it because it was too personal, and a low blow. I apologize.

thank you, apology accepted, please be careful about bringing up such a low blow again. just because i am a fan of the lolita fashion subculture and the cute anime girls that utilize it, because they are cute, doesn't make me a certain word i would rather not say. i did use a lot of dark and creepy backstories, but i am trying to reduce the creepiness. i may include bullying or abuse in a character's backstory, just not the stuff that Kira Moonsong, Kurogetsu Yamiko and Atsuko Aniri went through because i am doing my best to change that for hopefully the better.

my current Umbriere clone in the current Savage worlds campaign on saturdays is youthful and anemic, but the technology level of the setting is so advanced that she is fighting with a plasma pistol and light tactical power armor with a hologram projector and energy shield, not a melee build, still stealthy and persuasive to a point, but more classic rogue with a title and less creepy bard. her mother is still a fey alchemist and her rich uncle was genderswapped to a rich aunt due to fey matriarchy. but she is nowhere near as helpless in combat and her sickliness served as a reason for encouraging her to focus on wearing power armor and using a plasma pistol instead of adopting normal fey magic, because she didn't have the health for neither arcane magic nor the health for physical combat. power armor carries it's own weight and plasma ammo is weightless.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

Adam B. 135 wrote:

But the class did not only lose mercies and channel. It also lost incredibly strict roleplay restrictions. Those roleplay restrictions were included in paladin balance. It is why they are allowed to be so strong.

roleplay restrictions do nothing to balance a class. and paladin wasn't really that powerful to begin with. it was equal in power to barbarian and ranger, which have either no alignment restrictions or much looser ones, plus something had to fill in the dead levels. in fact, you can find a few posts saying that a paladin without alignment restrictions and without a code of conduct, is no more unbalanced than a paladin whom has them.

If they do nothing to balance a class, then they can't really be all that restrictive, as they obviously must not be stopping you from doing anything. I hear simultaneous arguments that the restrictions horribly limit the class and at the same time have no effect on it.

they restrict class behaviors but don't do anything to balance class power. if the class were deemed too strong, an alignment restriction is not the way to fix it. an unbalanced class is going to be unbalanced, regardless of alignment restriction.

is a Pixie Rogue Fine? or how about an Advanced Planetouched? an Advanced Planetouched with a PC class would be CR 1.

my first D&D game back in 1997 or so. the party asked for a mage because they were under the impression they needed somebody to lob fireballs and wipe out lotsa mooks. DM was a guy whom refused to let players read any of the books nor bring their own books. then one guy brought up that they needed a thief for the traps, and recommended i play an elf for some obscure ability elves had. i played a human multiclass theif/mage of lawful evil alignment whom was played as a scheming young noblewoman. she dealt with diplomacy and used enchantment spells to persuade, a subversion to the groups desire for a fireballing trapfinder, she used a wand of elemental summoning to summon a small elemental to spring the traps with no risk to the party and had a few low level elemental summoning spells, plus a ring of wizarddry. she joined a 15th level party as a mage 5/thief 8. she couldn't use fireball, she threw alchemical grenades instead, having taken alchemy as a nonweapon proficiency. she could stab with a knife if needed, but the alchemy did more damage than her backstabbing and she got XP for pitting mind controlled foes against their allies. after 3 months, she was a mage 18/thief 25 in a 17th level party due to beneficial use of enchantments.

But the class did not only lose mercies and channel. It also lost incredibly strict roleplay restrictions. Those roleplay restrictions were included in paladin balance. It is why they are allowed to be so strong.

roleplay restrictions do nothing to balance a class. and paladin wasn't really that powerful to begin with. it was equal in power to barbarian and ranger, which have either no alignment restrictions or much looser ones, plus something had to fill in the dead levels. in fact, you can find a few posts saying that a paladin without alignment restrictions and without a code of conduct, is no more unbalanced than a paladin whom has them.

i have a bad reputation for being seen as creepy and awkward, and i am seeking an online group to join Part time. i warn you that i am looking for a DM that is willing to play with creepy details and mature themes. i am trying to cut down the suggestive part my group shoves down my throat. but creepy cute anime girls seem to be my specialty, and well, i have the following optional preferences of a lack of alignment restrictions and open racial access to the point of even playing cute and creepy fey races in ways that may be seen as controversial to the American country's puritan beliefs. while i don't intend to play a creepy slave with 5 constitution, i tend to play pretty dark characters and well, i have no intention to devolve into ERP, and would rather keep away from the Hentacles. i have a few general concepts that require help fleshing out the group could work with. others can be made later if desired.

Sabrina Nicoletti, Female Dhampir Doctor, Pharmacist, Accountant and Librarian, carries a spear beleived to be the Gae-Bolg and Rumours are told of her defeating Chu Chulain in combat. primarily a physical combatant whom specializes in something similar in concept to wushu and knows enough about nonmagical medicine to quickly heal others during and between combats without relying on magic. has limited librarian's knowledge, but most of it pertains to ledgers and general social knowledges such as nobility, history and the like

Ilina Aniri, a Female Fey of appearantly preserved youth, despite her unnaturally long life whom dabbles in alchemy to create medicine with the intent to eventually sew life. hates Tyrants and Abusive slavemasters, racist towards gnomes and elves, and fights by gestalting elemental spirits to herself, fusing with the very elemental spirits she keeps stored within the pockets of her own soul, gaining their divine power to help her in combat. by defeating many dervishes, she learned to mimic their fighting style as a means to defeat them and resistant to magic due to massive saving throws derived from her fey blood. though a bit cute in the way a younger sister would be, she isn't considered conventionally attractive in a seductive way, nor beautiful in a muse kind of way. any weapon she grabs, gains the offensive benefits applied from her elemental gestalts, air for agility, fire for charisma, earth for constitution or water for strength. may require new class to work with. think kinda like Yuri from Shadowhearts or something like that.

Ventus, a Sylph Squire and Knight Academy Cadet with Rage issues known to flash like lightning into a tempest of thundering knives, thunderstorms accompanying her anger as her tempest of thunder allows her to slay her foes, she is the tempest of the storm, rather than the freedom of the wind.

i admit a lot of my older characters were creepy and morally questionable. i am working on Tweaking Atsuko's background to remove the imperial servitude in later incarnations and reducing Umbriere's Frailty in future incarnations. i need time to make my characters less creepy. but it takes time to develop the change, and i started in the last 2 campaigns by playing Doctor Ivan Redwood, an Adult Male Doctor and Scientist, and Playing Ventus, a Sylph Squire with Rage issues whom is neither excessively fragile nor a slave, but a Tales of Graces Style knight academy cadet whom channeled her rage through her twin knives, and was bullied because her rage created thunderstorms, and because bullies wanted to get her in trouble, so she became a squire to vent her frustration into something constructive, after being invited by a dwarven knight instructor named Hans known for similar rage issues. Ventus may have been young for a sylph, but that was because she was a squire, not a fully fledged knight, and to build attachment to Hans, and she has neither a 5 con nor a life of slavery, 12 Con before items, sure. Slayer levels, definitely.

i will keep my saturday group and my nice online monday group, and search for other groups throughout the week. my monday DM i found online, i actually like, and my saturday DM, though i have conflicting viewpoints, has a nice set of players and knows how to be entertaining, despite my characters being his primary targets. but while CDGing the evil emperor in a real game would be highly unlikely to happen, that is what the week of scouting and espionage disguised as a guard beforehand is for, to learn the guard shifts and the contingencies, so you can bypass them and eliminate the risk, but that requires a group which actually takes stealth, bluff and disguise, which seems quite rare according to these boards. i have seen plenty of use for those 3 skills for setting up that situation for a CDG in plenty of real games. effectively, learning to decieve the guards, bypass the contingencies and behead the evil emperor without anybody noticing, and making people figure out which guard did it.

Umbriere wrote:

sorry for the Run-on sentence. but my highschool was crap and loaded with lousy apathetic teachers whom just didn't care. so i know i didn't get a good education, despite having a diploma.

I'm noticing a theme, here...

i live in a bad area. bad schooling, lots of powermad jerkwads, few groups to play in, a huge portion of the groups are ran by said power mad jerkwads, i have to filter like 3 dozen groups of powermad jerkwads to find one nice and accomodating group that fits my schedule. i am worse than most Antisues.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

LazarX wrote:

And as usual, you're gettig the lawful good interpretation completely wrong.

Chaotic Goods can be honorable, and certainly Lawful Goods as well. Honor is not what defines the difference between the two.

The Chaotic Good character is the nice side of the "all about me" chaotic neutral alignment. His chaotic aspect means that he defines Good solely on his own terms. If they happen to agree with someone else's terms, that's a bonus but not mandatory. He might swear oaths, he may be the most honorable person on the planet, but it's purely on HIS terms. When he swears an oath it is on his honor alone.

The Lawful Good on the other hand, defines good from standards outside himself. Whether it's the tenets of a order, the worship of a church, the important thing is that he defines his Good in terms of a greater hiearchy. When he swears an oath it is in the name of his order, his family, or his god.

Within those bounds lies a lot of room for variety in play.

so sneaking into the Evil Emperor's Palace while his guards are off duty and assassinating the evil emperor in his sleep 3 days before he is ready to start his evil ritual of mass Demonic Resurrection and save billions of innocent lives by preventing the demonic horde from arising by killing the evil overlord in his sleep while he was helpless and denying him a chance to bring Armageddon, including saving the lives of many potential sacrifices by both slaying the evil emperor in his sleep and preventing the Resurrection of a demonic horde while minimizing damage to yourself and your companions is not lawful good? even if it were the right thing to do over the honorable thing to do?

Your high school english teachers have called. They've sentenced you to death for that run-on sentence. The creative writing teachers have added the accessory crime of using a strawman argument.

i was asking whether or not it would be lawful good. sorry for the Run-on sentence. but my highschool was crap and loaded with lousy apathetic teachers whom just didn't care. so i know i didn't get a good education, despite having a diploma. would something like that example fit under the lawful good banner of choosing right over honorable? and would it fit as something a paladin should be able to do in your vision?

And as usual, you're gettig the lawful good interpretation completely wrong.

Chaotic Goods can be honorable, and certainly Lawful Goods as well. Honor is not what defines the difference between the two.

The Chaotic Good character is the nice side of the "all about me" chaotic neutral alignment. His chaotic aspect means that he defines Good solely on his own terms. If they happen to agree with someone else's terms, that's a bonus but not mandatory. He might swear oaths, he may be the most honorable person on the planet, but it's purely on HIS terms. When he swears an oath it is on his honor alone.

The Lawful Good on the other hand, defines good from standards outside himself. Whether it's the tenets of a order, the worship of a church, the important thing is that he defines his Good in terms of a greater hiearchy. When he swears an oath it is in the name of his order, his family, or his god.

Within those bounds lies a lot of room for variety in play.

so sneaking into the Evil Emperor's Palace while his guards are off duty and assassinating the evil emperor in his sleep 3 days before he is ready to start his evil ritual of mass Demonic Resurrection and save billions of innocent lives by preventing the demonic horde from arising by killing the evil overlord in his sleep while he was helpless and denying him a chance to bring Armageddon, including saving the lives of many potential sacrifices by both slaying the evil emperor in his sleep and preventing the Resurrection of a demonic horde while minimizing damage to yourself and your companions is not lawful good? even if it were the right thing to do over the honorable thing to do?

the right thing in this case, while dishonorable, was to prevent armageddon from coming, by stopping the one guy powerful enough to bring it, through assassination. effectively, you saved countless innocent lives by swallowing your pride and beheading the evil emperor in his sleep while he was most vulnerable. it would be akin to Aang sneaking into the fire nation and swallowing his pride to behead Firelord Ozai in his sleep and stop a war that lasted a century and save countless potential future lives. effectively, you killed the evil overlord before he could resurrect the demonic army.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

Pan wrote:

It would be much easier for you to change GMs then to force Paizo to change Pathfinder at everyones expense

we don't have to change pathfinder 1e, but Pathfinder 2e better not include alignment restrictions and PFS 2e should make their entire advanced race guide playable without needing a boon, not just a handful of races with a boon.

"Better not"?

Really?

Pathfinder 2e would have to be a big departure from Pathfinder to truly be a different system, and well, if it does come out, i don't want to see alignment in the core rulebook, in fact, we should theoretically include a bunch of additional races and classes by dropping premade flavor and alignment restrictions. effectively, give a generic mechanical description of the class with a few examples from a variety of flavors around the world, to get around the "paladin must be a paladin" by creating a class, that while useable to represent a paladin could also be used to represent other magical and supernatural warriors as well. Repeating the same D20 system with a few tweaks, is not something i would imagine Paizo doing.

It would be much easier for you to change GMs then to force Paizo to change Pathfinder at everyones expense

we don't have to change pathfinder 1e, but Pathfinder 2e better not include alignment restrictions and PFS 2e should make their entire advanced race guide playable without needing a boon, not just a handful of races with a boon.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

i have never played lawful good because i have DMs that are really anal about it and enforce an extremely rigid set of archetypes and try to prevent any "creative weaseling"...

Well, at least consider the notion that part of the problem lies in the interpretation the GMs have been giving the alignment system, not the alignment system itself. Honestly, I share some of your difficulties with portraying Lawful Good: it's a common literary meme, but to be honest even most characters who "must choose between what's honorable and what's right" make their choice in the course of a single movie/book/whatever, while a Pathfinder LG character must keep on deciding indefinitely (or change alignments.)

and that is why i cannot commit to a lawful good alignment and portray it for long. because being forced to play the naive idealist whom has to have it both ways or fall, is a bad idea. but i would rather, that lawful characters be able to get away with having less choices forced throughout the campaign, as something closer to a book series or movie.

forcing the choice between what is honorable and what is right every session is just lazy DMing as a means to set up the paladin to fall. should i play a paladin, i would probably choose what is right over what is honorable, even if that right deed is dishonorable. and would prefer not to have my class turned off for choosing right over honor. if stopping the Villain in his sleep with a quiet beheading before he wakes up to summon the evil deity would save more innocent lives, then expect me to sneak up on the villain's lair three knights before the ritual to coup de grace the sleeping villain to save as many lives as possible. i won't give the villain a chance to do his ritual, complete his monologue or bring the worlds end. it may not be honorable, but it saves many more innocent lives. if i can get access to a means to scry on the villain and teleport to his lair to slay him in his sleep, bonus points to save lives.

Time for my personal opinion.

I've played enough alignment-less game systems to think it doesn't really have much of an effect on the overall gameplay. People who want to play disruptive jerk characters will do so regardless of alignment. GMs who want to be overly restrictive and controlling will do so regardless, they'll just use different tools for it. At the same time, the fact that I've played and enjoyed many games that don't have any alignment system inclines me to think that it's not a strictly necessary part of roleplaying games or that taking it away results in chaos and anarchy.

Personally, I think alignment is useful for a quick moral/ethical sum-up of a character, but probably shouldn't have too many mechanical effects. In my experience, the more mechanics there are attached the alignment, the easier it is for it to become a straitjacket, and the more otherwise good GMs feel like they need to be the Alignment Police. One of the more depressing GM experiences I had was having a Paladin player who'd obviously suffered under a straitjacket GM at some point, because he was constantly telling himself he couldn't do perfectly reasonable things (like not fall for the obvious trap the bad guy was setting up) without falling and losing his power.

so true, and the alignment system only makes it more extreme because it makes it easier to straightjacket. in Fact, D&D, PF, D20 and their derivative systems, are the only systems that use alignment, and they all do so, only because D&D included it. players whom want to be straightjacketed when alignment systems don't apply, will straightjacket themselves. i'd rather a player play the character with the personality they envision and the mechanical package they envision, rather than being forced to sacrifice the personality to get the mechanical package or vice versa. removal of alignment won't stop abusive DMs from being abusive, but it will give one less tool to abuse and one less tool to distrupt sessions with.

RDM42 wrote:

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

Alignment restrictions limit characters to the same generic tropes. and those tropes, tend to be quite repetitive. either with a paladin, you end up with another generic wannabe Sir Roland under a different name, or somebody trying to be a fantasy Dirty Harry with a longsword and shield, high saves and swift action self heals.

No they don't. They remove some tropes. They don't limit you to just a few. There are more varieties of lawful good possible than you could play in a lifetime.

RDM42 is correct.

The 'limitations' of which you speak are self-imposed. I've portrayed paladins all my gaming life, and have never played either of the two tropes you mentioned. Nor do the examples you provide particularly bolster your claim.

i have never played lawful good because i have DMs that are really anal about it and enforce an extremely rigid set of archetypes and try to prevent any "creative weaseling". and well, i don't even know how to think like a lawful good person because i am so shaped by modern corporate evils and have difficulty understanding morality.

Chaotic Good i could probably do, neutral good is also achievable with similarly difficult effort, but i can't do lawful good, i just can't be rational and calm enough to play lawful good and if i tried, i would break character very quickly. give me access to anything on the neutral or evil axis, and i could come up with all sorts of ideas that could work with a party, and a few that could help a paladin. even if a bit tolerated.

i just can't maintain a prim and proper morally upright alignment, i am just the wrong guy to RP Captain America or Optimus Prime. a Chaotic Good Warrior and freedom fighter whom wanders the world to offer his assistance to those in need by slaying tyrants and abusive lords to liberate the oppressed for no more than the people can realistically offer, but not completely without reward, sure. i can do something akin to Vash the Stampede. i wouldn't consider him lawful good. essentially, the difference would be made up in favors, but i'm not going to expect 5,000 gold coins from a small shire in the hills, maybe unlimited access to free turnip stew and a free reserved room at the inn every time i visit town, 2,000 gold coins worth of crops to trade as equivalent to cash at the end of the initial mission and a minor weapon upgrade, sure.

essentially, instead of working for massive amounts of coin, i compensate the difference in favors and items the people realistically would possess or could commision in a short amount of time.

Lincoln Hills wrote:

Jaelithe wrote:

Lawful good, in some measure because 70% of the PCs I play are paladins.

I'm glad to hear the class has some fans. Out of curiosity, however, if paladin limitations were merely "non-chaotic, non-evil," do you think you'd take advantage of other alignment options?

No.

It would likely drive me away from the class entirely.

it would actually draw me to the class, though i would make it simply any nonevil for the Chaotic Good Players.

No they don't. They remove some tropes. They don't limit you to just a few. There are more varieties of lawful good possible than you could play in a lifetime.

lawful good is quite a constricting alignment, most of the varieties you see on lawful good are mutations of the same general variant, the same Variant used by Captain America, Optimus Prime, and both Arthur and Charlemagne's knights. just with maybe profession, personal status and cosmetic details altered here and there. there is nothing interesting about lawful good besides the fact it is the purity sue alignment.

obscure tactical JRPG info but Lawful Good is what Flonne From Disgaea started as before the became Neutral Good due to her desire to redeem the fiendish overlord rather than slay him. her reward for her attempt to redeem the fiendish overlord, is to get turned into a flower by her angelic overlord she once idolized in an act of betrayal by the people of heaven, merely because she tried to Redeem Prince Laharl instead of slay him. and Prince Laharl himself was Half Demon, a Quarter Angel and a Quarter Human, born from a Nephilim whom redeemed a former demonic overlord behind the scenes without her master's permission. Same master punished her too. because she wished to redeem demons, the Angels of that setting wanted to smite her too. Laharl's mother was slain by an angel and the Angels set it up to look like Suicide and judged her guilty for the sin of Suicide as an attempt to cover her murder. Seraph Lamington was the villain of the entire first game and had like 7 forms.

memorax wrote:

I'm not saying alignment has to be a strait jacket in terms of roleplaying. There is a reason tit's so tied into the D&D. If one wants to play himself at the gaming table I encourage it. I also enforce a alignment if a player decides to take a class whose abilites are tied to a alignment. I have a barbarian cohort who at the start of the fight was trying was on top of a stone hut trying to break his way in to get at a enemy inside. I realized that was not proper barbarian behavior. Stopped. Ran to the edge of the hut jumped off and macked a Vrock off the side of the head. I took a AOO yet it just seemed more in character.

Best typo of the week. :)

On topic, I've been playing without alignment for six years (4e), and have yet to see any 'free for all' problems. Players who write 'Good' on their sheet (despite me reminding them that it doesn't mean anything) still play heroic good guys. I did have one group of utterly amoral mercanary PCs, because that's what everyone wanted, and I was cool with it.

Take that for what you will.

even in 3.5e D20 or PF, a lack of alignment isn't guaranteed to cause 'Free for All' problems. players whom want to roleplay a heroic good guy will end up roleplaying a heroic good guy because they want to, not because their class restrictions tell them too. at the same time, if a player wanted to roleplay a complete sadistic psychopath, they were going to do it no matter what their class would tell them too, and would channel it in any character they would have played. what TS proves, is that a lack of alignment restrictions will gives players more freedom to play the character they want to play with the skillset they envision their character possessing, not sacrificing the alignment they want wanted to play to qualify for the skillset they envisioned. it won't be a free for all like people say. in fact, without the metagame construct of alignment as a factor. players will be less inclined to feel shoehorned into playing the same old tropes, and will play the character they want to play unsuppressed, which i think matters a whole lot more than a DMs desire to reign in evil characters by being able to turn their class off. if the players wanted to be a guild of amoral bloodthirsty mercenaries, then forcing them into a campaign where they are expected to defy their characters' natures by being good and upright, saving lives rather than taking them, goes against the players.

SAMAS wrote:

but that brings me back to my original point: If you are more concerned with Balance than with Good as a reason to fight Evil, why are you worshipping Iomedae, a Goddess who clearly wishes to tip the scales the other way?

Likely because you believe the scales are tipped in evil's direction as-is and none of the gods within one step of your alignment are aggressive about it.

And you're probably right, given the alarming frequency of world ending plots and the armies of Fiends that lie in wait.

so true. there are so many world ending plots and such massive and powerful fiendish armies are quite common, Iomedae needs all the paladins she can get to smite the fiendish armies, and well, Chaotic Good or Lawful Neutral Paladins with a strong dislike for fiends, should be just as acceptable as their lawful good counterparts, even if the Lawful Neutral Ones were too disciplined to act independantly and the Chaotic Good Ones are too impulsive and independant to order around in their fight against demonkind.

Dwarven Scarred Witch Doctor Sounds Awesome, comes from a group of Dwarves that were captured by Ogres and kept as slaves for generations. the Dwarves learned the Ogre Traditions of magic through ritual scarification and become scarred witch doctors themselves. crafting masks from the hides of their fallen ogre captors.

Alignment restrictions limit characters to the same generic tropes. and those tropes, tend to be quite repetitive. either with a paladin, you end up with another generic wannabe Sir Roland under a different name, or somebody trying to be a fantasy Dirty Harry with a longsword and shield, high saves and swift action self heals.

Neither the code of conduct nor the Alignment Restrictions balance the class, and some people want the mechanics of the paladin without the alignment restriction, not because the paladin is overpowered or anything, but because it has an appealing set of balanced mechanics for most martial characters, balanced with the ranger and barbarian. the other 2 big martials of the tier. fighter needs to be brought up to their level.

in fact, before we reference the paladin again, lets look at the barbarians restriction to can't be lawful. who says a law abiding farmhand or scholar can't have anger issues? whose to say a lawful ascetic samurai-like character can't learn a form of Serenity based combat style with similar mechanical benefits? whose to say a legalistic fey youth can't become so cheerful and hyper, that the manic cheer increases her combat prowess?

does the zen samurai swordsman suddenly lose access to his serenity based trance for adopting a code of honor? does the farmhand lose his anger issues for abiding by the laws of his land? does the fey youth, a daughter of a fey lawyer, lose her manic cheeriness by being the law abiding daughter of a fey lawyer? i mean they are all reskinned barbarians that all make sense with a lawfully aligned in some manner.

Jaelithe wrote:

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I've never removed a player's powers without the player first asking me to as part of the character's story. Roleplayed by acting out of alignment.

But if a player forced your hand with a grossly inappropriate act, would you pull the trigger?

How does a player commit any grossly inappropriate act without some kind of discussion about the possible consequences beforehand? As a GM I'm not going to say: "Yes, you kill some babies, now you're evil and lose your powers GOTCHA!"

Instead we'll discuss what possible consequences might be, and if the player wants to follow through on it. Maybe it ends up being something he thinks about, and perhaps seeks out a cleric in town afterwards for thinking wrathful thoughts. Maybe he goes through with it, because he has an intelligence of 9, and misinterpreted his deity's stance on whatever causes him to fall, moving one or two steps away from his current alignment and perhaps losing his deity's power, AFTER being made aware that might very well be the consequence for his action. Then he gets to roleplay either getting back into his deity's good graces, or perhaps the crisis of faith forces him to retrain his class, or choose a deity more closely aligned with his worldview.

There's nothing broken about alignment here.

There is something broken about an adversarial relationship between players and GMs.

essentially what i would do too. but despite the new deity, i would allow him the choice of preserving the powers of his old deity upon the character sheet with his new deity, so he doesn't have to go through 10 hours of rebuilding, because the more appropriate deity would want a seamless transition, which means they wouldn't want excessive changing of domains or proficiencies that may make certain feats illegal.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I've never removed a player's powers without the player first asking me to as part of the character's story. Roleplayed by acting out of alignment.

But if a player forced your hand with a grossly inappropriate act, would you pull the trigger?

i wouldn't pull the trigger unless the player agreed to it and suggested it out of game for storyline reasons. and if the player did, i would allow them to retrain their character without cost into something more fitting from the ground up, or allow them to choose a god with looser moral restrictions and keep the stuff they got from their old god, but granted by their new god they don't realize is a new god. for example, Asmodeus decieving a former priest of Sarenrae by pretending to be Sarenrae and granting him all the benefits as if he were still a cleric of Sarenrae, despite Asmodeus being his new god behind the scenes without him knowing, and never revealing, trying to make the transition as seamless as possible.

mechanically, he would be a non-good cleric of Sarenrae with all his powers intact, but what he doesn't realize, is his powers come from Asmodeus and those clerics of "Asmodeus" he was harming were really paladins of "Sarenrae" he was deluded by Asmodeus' deception into beleiving were "Asmodean." due to divine illusion, she still functions a neutral good cleric of Saranerae skillset wise, despite being empowered by asmodeus and really being lawful evil, but she detects as neutral good, and has the healing and sun domains, it is just they work differently by damaging those she percieves as undead as if they were undead and healing those she percieves as living as if they were living, even if both cases were living.

in fact, a similar case could be made for a paladin of "Iomedae" whom doesn't realize that despite her paladin powers as if she were good, is being decieved by "lolth" into thinking her fellow "paladins" are really blackguards of "lollth" when really, they are Ioemedean paladins and she is really a paladin of "lolth" smiting her former comerades before lolth decieved her and made the transition as seamless as possible through illusion. she still has the divine grace, lay on hands and the like, it's just they interact differently than they once did by affecting what she beleives to be her foes but were once her allies

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

RDM42 wrote:

So you are saying that the cleric or paladin should be able to FORCE the god to grant him spells? Really?

more like the cleric's or paladin's spells shouldn't have come from the god's power in the first place, but from either a ritual or special training procedures unique to the order and that the god's influence play a much smaller role.

Just curious: From where do the ritual, special training and order get the power they dole out? What is its source?

the power for all spellcasters is internal, whether arcane, divine or psionic, and the act of tapping into this power is closer to a science, meaning the people performing the traditional rituals, aren't giving you power, they are teaching you their techniques you can use to tap into your own power, akin to recording which techniques work in a complex science. divine casters, though they have different general traditions, tend to be less willing to call this science a science, and gods don't really care, because magic is a mortal invention, and the gods themselves, cannot interact with the natural world except by proxy. and stronger proxies can siphon great power from the gods. there are creatures whom can teach you the basics of harnessing this inner power in a more malicious manner, but generally those creatures expect some kind of cost.

the ritual is simply a college initiation kinda thing similar to what fraternities do to haze their new pledges, and the special training is what really matters, not that it is truly neccessary, it is just a faster way to control your own inner power. some monks refer to it a chi, some wizards refer to it as mana, and some refer to it by a variety of other names, but everyone possesses it, it's just that not everybody knows how to use it. you can teach yourself, it just takes a bit longer.

So, because some players try to cheat remove the rules?

and finding an excuse to strip away a cleric or paladins powers for simply having an unorthodox view of their gods traditions and a different alignment that requires them to explore this unorthdox view is a dick move.

some unorthodox views may be drastically different but still legitimate interpretations of a god's beleifs and a god shouldn't care about that actions of one small fish in his sea of followers. in fact, a god is too busy paying too much attention to more important things to be even bothered to depower a cleric for having an unorthodox but still legitimate interpretation. a lawful evil paladin of the lawful neutral god of self perfection whom smites the idiotic and oblivious for not using the full potential of their brain, is still following the ideals of his god, self perfection, it's just he is punishing those whom he doesn't beleive to fit that ideal.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

RDM42 wrote:

So you are saying that the cleric or paladin should be able to FORCE the god to grant him spells? Really?

more like the cleric's or paladin's spells shouldn't have come from the god's power in the first place, but from either a ritual or special training procedures unique to the order and that the god's influence play a much smaller role.

it's not that the god in this case is granting the cleric or paladin his powers, it's that the cleric or paladin earned his powers be going through a ritual and undergoing a specific training regimen 4E style and because the god never gave the powers in the first place, the god has nothing he can truly revoke.

in other words, gods should have a whole lot less influence on the setting, and even in a setting where gods can depower clerics, i'm sure the god's enemy or rival god is powering the cleric in the same way to appear seamless. or maybe the cleric learned a way to steal a portion of the god's power or cheat him out of it in a way the god doesn't realize.

Heaven forbid the cleric or paladins actions have serious consequences.

Why is it that the cleric should be able to violate his god's tenants without losing his abilities and why exactly does that make for a better world?

it's not that it makes for a better world, but makes one where players aren't inclined to seek loopholes around their restrictions to justify keeping their powers. which is why i like the 4E method of clerics drawing their power from the combination of an initiation ritual and a montage of exclusive training that focuses around the focus of that religious branch, rather than the BS that you draw your powers from some all powerful extradimensional being whom you never see, but always shouts orders. stripping away character powers permanently does not make a good character design, only an abusable one.

plus, there are plenty of stories, especially in the middle east, of clever third sons whom were beleived to be worthless till they outsmarted, cheated and decieved a godlike being to gain irrevokeable access to their power. Aladdin isn't the only one of them, or another idea, is to base a clerics power off of their faith and belief, rather than gaining it because a god gives them to you. essentially, i want divine intervention to be as minimal as possible except of characters that have a "God's Favored" type of feat. and because of this, the Ritual and Training idea, is the best way to justify why clerics retain their powers after displeasing their god. which requires a drastically different setting that resolves divine magic differently.

i can't stand the idea that a characters hard earned class features can be revoked by the dungeon master at any moment. if a god is angry, the god should send level appropriate enemies to deal with the cleric, using their divine military resources as appropriate. stripping powers is a lousy consequence that would merely lead to the player being required to make a new character, sending agents of the faith out to apprehend the herectic and sending an inquisition to capture, interrogate and convert them, would be a more fitting consequence. not that an entire army would attack this character at once, but have say, squads of inquisitors whom see the character as a threat in any appropriate settlement whom may have a chance to stop the unorthodox cleric and give the cleric a chance to bypass them. in other words, limit a deities power over the world.

So you are saying that the cleric or paladin should be able to FORCE the god to grant him spells? Really?

more like the cleric's or paladin's spells shouldn't have come from the god's power in the first place, but from either a ritual or special training procedures unique to the order and that the god's influence play a much smaller role.

it's not that the god in this case is granting the cleric or paladin his powers, it's that the cleric or paladin earned his powers be going through a ritual and undergoing a specific training regimen 4E style and because the god never gave the powers in the first place, the god has nothing he can truly revoke.

in other words, gods should have a whole lot less influence on the setting, and even in a setting where gods can depower clerics, i'm sure the god's enemy or rival god is powering the cleric in the same way to appear seamless. or maybe the cleric learned a way to steal a portion of the god's power or cheat him out of it in a way the god doesn't realize.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

The argument that narrative choices shouldn't effect game mechanics seems absurd to me. These things shouldn't exist independently of each other.

A monk who sees how swashbucklers and Duelists do their thing and leaves the monastery to test his skills against them. That's not chaotic, that's someone wanting to test their discipline against such flashy styles. If they are so impressed later on they multiclass as a swashbuckler or take the duelist prestige class the character might become famous as a founder of a new style. He can still be considered lawful, because disciplines grow and change. Or perhaps he does start embracing chaos, and then retrains his monk levels as swashbuckler or brawler levels, since he no longer can maintain the mental discipline but still knows the physical moves but has lost the mental discipline.

The narrative informs the rules, and the rules inform the narrative. Alignment is fine.

No one is arguing that narrative shouldn't inform the rules. Alignment is a completely unrealistic way to look at a world and encourages metagaming weirdness. It helps neither role playing nor mechanics. People's actions should have real world consequences to be sure, but alignment is just a pointless metafiction.

the roleplay consquences for your actions should generally be roleplay oriented or fitting to the NPCs, rather than a DM stripping your powers because you didn't do what the book told you to.

if a cleric abuses his divine power and sullies a gods reputation, the god shouldn't simply strip the cleric's power, but send his followers to apprehend the priest whom violates his code. maybe cultists and paladins chase the priest for violating low level infractures, but after the priest grows in power from his infractions, the god would eventually send his extraplanar servants to apprehend the priest

a god isn't simply going to care to depower a misguided ex follower that some pawn of his can eliminate for him, and well, gods have varying tiers of pawns, plus i like the idea that deities have limits to what they can do in the natural world. send messages to a mortal proxy by means of the equivalent to a phonecall or instant message? sure, send a handful of extraplanar servants to fight a more dangerous abuser? sure, at a great cost to the god's energy and power. i don't like the idea that deities are all powerful, completely invincible and all knowing. a lot of the polytheistic pantheons had gods that could at least be defeated or deceived. black and white morality only really supports one playstyle i can think of, kicking the dungeon door down and slaughtering the creatures that detect as evil without remorse because their species are incapable of good. i like to include such things as non-evil demons or non-good angels as a classic means to throw people off the murder track.

well, they don't get channel either. it's a bonus feat at every level divisible by 3. or 6 bonus feats at level 18. but i assumed bonus feats were weaker than mercies because there weren't many powerful feats. well, they don't have weapon training and armor training, and well, i would rather have swift action condition removal than a small bonus to hit and damage.

You don't believe in the reality of evil?

:/ ?

Or evil in a game with diabolically (and worse, diabolic can be negotiated with) evil beings?

You don't think a spell should be able to detect beings of utter darkness, or identify the evil deep in the souls of the most depraved hiding like wolves amongst the sheep?

When a spell detects such darkness and allegiance to evil forces and its twisted ideals, you don't think the players should be killing that evil creature?

I am genuinely interested in your thoughts.

it's not that players shouldn't be killing truly vile foes, it is that a simple spell should not be sufficient an excuse for the players to kill a foe or to spoil a plot, kinda hard to make a nonmagical evil mastermind politician type villain when a simple easily spammable spell can spoil the villain for you in an instant

i want the subtle masterminds to be less spoilable, and for such things as laws and the like, to discourage using detect evil as a means to get away with murder.

alignment restrictions merely serve as an excuse to hold a character's powers as a carrot that can be stripped away by an abusive DM, and well, i thought my original problem was with alignment itself, and then i realized, it wasn't alignment that was my problem, but making alignment a quantifiyable game mechanic that influences other game mechanics, instead of making alignment a purely roleplaying thing. i realized, alignment isn't the problem after all, the real problem is alignment bleeds itself over into influencing and controlling game mechanics, when a character's mechanical choices should never force them to meet a specific behavioral pattern to benefit from them, but instead, a characters alignment should be based upon a combination of their personality, motives, intent and actions, while at the same time, alignments should have no interaction whatsoever with game mechanics and divination spells should generally be nonexistent, because just like alignment, divination spells encourage a certain set of metagaming.

when a player gives a character a personality. it is usually a personality intended to shoehorn them into a specific alignment so that they can keep their primary class features. or if they have no such restriction, they will pick either the least interactive or least influencing alignment so they needn't worry as much about smite mechanics. i'm not saying alignment shouldn't be a tool for players whom need it, but alignment shouldn't influence game mechanics or interact with it, but personality should interact with overall alignment

casting a simple low level spell shouldn't tell you "this guy is evil." in fact, i don't want to see smites that only affect "evil foes" and would rather see, alignment be pure flavor be completely divorced from game mechanics, and divinations lose thier power greatly. i have seen the problem. not a problem with alignment itself, but a problem with immature players, jerkwad DMs, the intense level of how alignment interacts with game mechanics and the fact there are a bunch of plot ruining divination spells out there.

i'd rather players decide for themselves, an opinion that percieves an individual as evil, no matter how misguided their opinion may be, rather than treat a person as evil due to what a low level spell told them.

I do like this a lot! Very much so. Surprisingly enough, I do not feel as if it steps on the Warpriest's toes.

Your bonded weapon should have access to the unholy, axiomatic, and anarchic enchantments.

at 11th level, your horse can gain the Celestial template. Might wanna replace it with:

At 11th level, the mount gains one of these 4 templates: the Celestial, Fiendish, Entropic, or Resolute creature simple template and becomes a magical beast for the purposes of determining which spells affect it. The Crusader chooses which template is applied, but the choice must be made as one of his Patron Deity’s alignments. If his deity is true-neutral, the mount gains the template appropriate to the Crusader’s choice for his Aligned Aura class feature.

Lastly, DR gained should be able to be DR/lawful and DR/chaotic as well.

i plan to fix that later.

RP and Mechanics don't need to be mutually exclusive, but at the same time, a character's mechanical package should not include ways to straightjacket their roleplay by holding their hard earned class abilities hostage. instead of balancing a class through behavioral restrictions, which fails to work for a variety of reasons, we should open up the classes to add more variety of concepts.

instead of a paladin class whose only viable concept is either a knight of the round table or a knight of charlemagne's court, neither of which fit in a polytheistic society based on heavy modern influences that are as corrupt as the influences of the Roman empire and not as morally uptight of the middle ages where there was one religion whom governed the morals of the remnants of a whole empire, a world that is nowhere near resembling or own middle ages, no matter how close we try with the tech level, but instead our modern world but with swords being more wide spread and magic in place of technology, a world of greedy economics and religions of various forms, the world that a variety of fantasy RPGs of all media portray, the concept of one as Pure as Roland or Gallahad, would fall apart in a world of such corruption.

Pathfinder, D&D and their descendants, including many retroclones, if you look at the economy, the polytheism, the magic that serves as a stand in for technology, and all the modern ideals that bleed through it, is not Arthurian England nor is it Charlegmane's France, the game is built around an assumption similar to the modern earth, despite differences in technology, a society as corrupt and greedy as the Romans, and the Greeks and Persians before them.

you would have to heavily tweak pathfinder and remove a lot of stuff to get anywhere near Charlegmane or Arthur, in fact, those 2 kings and their knights, as well as the paladin class based upon them, are a poor idea for a game heavily influenced by a very Grey and Corrupt society like our own, when such characters existed in a Romanticized Era of Piety and Virtue. to make a holy knight class that truly fits such a Polytheistic and Immoral setting, the paladin's code would be a poor fit. with the amount of Racism, the Greedy Economy, the Modern Influences, the Polytheism and the like, D&D, Pathfinder, and their relatives, this one lone system that uses alignment as a measuring stick, has a morality so screwed up by default, that a paladin cannot exist as published without extreme DM assistance, whether it be changing how the setting operates, or changing how party composition and adventures work. Fitting a Paladin into Pathfinder as written, is akin to Fitting Sir Roland into the Roman Empire, a Den of Wolves that would quickly Exploit Roland's Purity and leave him either a quick premature death, or a jaded and corrupt hollow shell of his former purity. either he would die following his beliefs, or he would discard them in this harsh polytheistic world that has so many modern influences, that it might as well be modern america which might as well be the Roman Empire, the very corruption he opposed.

asking a paladin to always be lawful good and follow a code of conduct, is to die in a fantasy world that started with a 50 year old book written by a guy whom was heavily influenced by modern corruption without realizing. the majority of stock fantasy settings, whether published in an RPG book, found in a Console Game, or in an MMO use so much influence from the 20th and 21st centuries, an influence very similar to that of the Roman Empire at the height of corruption, that raising a paladin whom follows their code, requires them to either be favored by powerful outside forces beyond existence, die following beliefs that get them killed alongside a reckless and unadapted lifestyle, or adapt to the people and become as grey as they are.

there is no true fantasy setting that truly fits a society the paladin can fit in, because, we are so detached from the medieval roots outside of stories, due to modern influence, that we fail to see the intense morality and piety required of a setting resembling anything historically accurate and see the world through our own Hedonistic, Greedy, Tainted Corporate Eyes

back in medieval times, there may have been intense virtue requirements to become a knight, which allowed them to keep the depraved in line, but that only worked because society at the time focused on one major worldwide religion that controlled everything, no matter how corrupt that religion really was, but the moment you include polytheism, and the moment you include the widespread modern levels of communication and innovation, whether you call it technology or magic, you will achieve the same corruption we have in our own world. technology has massive price tags attached, as do magic items, and using magic items is akin to operating technology. the only difference is magic is more effective and more expensive than our own technology, which encourages the greediest businesses to become, contract and train wizards and other spellcasters, because magic is the super corporation, much like petrolium is in our own world. just as we use petrolium and other fuels for a great many things, magic is used for the construction of a lot of devices and even should one not afford to commission a wizard's service, they will develop low income means to incorporate basic arcane utilities, traps that cure diseases and heal wounds if you insert a small amount of coin, akin to a vending machine, cheap packets for flavoring a beverage to something more desirable, arcane lights that can be used perpetually.

with magic being a more prominent power in many fantasy RPGs than technology in own world, and with magic providing greater conveniences, a variety of tactics, countermeasures, precautions and innovations will be made to equalize a portion of the wizard prominence and wizards will be at the top of the chain, and because of this, there will be Roman levels of corruption and well, especially, corrupt wizards. in a world like this, a paladin's morality will lead to a short lived paladin and thus the extinction of the paladin class, unless paladins adapt to said world. because a lot of fantasy worlds deal with the prominence of magic eliminating businesses, have modern influences in morality and economy, a paladin will not survive long in such a world, because of this, we need classes like the paladin to be more adapted to this more advanced world with a mountain of modern influences and better than modern technology. because of this, the core paladin as written, no matter how you shoehorn it into most fantasy worlds written by people from the modern era, is generally a bad fit. it is like fitting a square peg into a round hole, the first strike against Sir Roland, is the Polytheism, the second, the Modern Morality and Influence, and third, the economy influenced by Modern American Morality and the effects such heavy sophistication impose. Pathfinder and D&D, as well as their cousins, are not Medieval Arthurian England, no matter how we imagine them to be, nor are they Charlemagne's France either. the amount of modern influence and the amount of information leaked from alternate medias and mythologies, makes a paladin unplayable as it is currently written. at the same time, Druids as written are not Celtic Druids or anything like them, but something closer to a hybrid of a modern enviromentalist and a Native American Skinwalker with Shamanic powers tacked on. the only thing missing is DRX/Gold and a hint of carnivorism.

i'm not saying most fantasy settings are modern america, just that a lot of modern american influence tends to bleed through when such settings are written, and the bled influence makes the core paladin a bad fit. maybe they aren't portrayed as corrupt as i am making them out to be, but there is a lot of corruption behind the scenes. thieves guilds being a good example, as well as bandits, pirates, a bunch of published adventures where you have to commit a few evil actions to progress the story, and well, the majority of published adventures are where a paladin fails to fit. not that a dungeon master can't create and encourage a campaign, setting, and group that accommodates the paladin's needs without the intentional moral dilemmas, but just like a rogue or monk, a paladin is a very niche class that depends on niche exceptions to function, niche exceptions that if not provided, can topple, cripple and gimp them while leaving them useless. a paladin only works in a setting with a clear black and white morality where you play as the good guys and the only hostile foes you encounter are evil combatants and you never encounter evil noncombatants, because killing a noncombatant leads to instant falling very quickly, no matter how evil the child or woman was, and well, classes with alignment restrictions are the primary target for jerkwad power mad dungeon masters, and characters dependant on niche pieces of specialized equipment come second.

i'm asking an alternative, both for the people that use lots of misery porn in their settings, for people that don't want to be cripplied by Jerkwad DMs, and third, for people whom want to play in a setting with modern or Roman influenced morality. to at least have an official by the book option for removing alignment restrictions for the purpose of running games that are darker in nature and a lot less idealistic than a paladin requires. worlds like Eberron and Ravenloft, that are so Grim and Gritty, an innocent and naive Goodie two shoes with a pure heart just wouldn't fit. settings like Cthulu where your innocence will quickly fade with your personal sense of virtue as you try to survive. a lawful good paragon of virtue does not fit in most horror settings, and fits in very few fantasy settings not built around accomodating their requirements.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

the only reason i would consider that Valid in 1e is because Fighters HAD NO FEATURES and they had to put some kind of limitation upon them.

PF Paladins aren't Variant Fighters with Extra Features Anymore.

That's not entirely true. A 1st Edition Fighter's features were implicit - they were the 'gold standard' adventurer with top-notch hit points, proficiencies, and fighting skills that other classes sacrificed/deviated from in in order to get other things.

I'd be on board with revisiting Paladins and other alignment-restricted classes to increase their power proportionately, though, if necessary - you have, at least, tacitly acknowledged the foundational validity of the idea, all that's left is applying it properly in light of what's changed since 1st Edition (which I think actually isn't as much as others might suppose).

i still beleive Roleplay and Mechanics should be two seperate entities. there are a lot of things i find more ridiculous than a divinely imbued crusader of a non lawful good alignment, many of which i can suspend disbelief.

this class may be a bit controversial, but it is mostly an option for other players whom like myself, have to deal with Jerkwad DMs whom like to strip away a characters powers for the LULZ.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

in fact, playing a paladin in any group in my area, for the majority of them, is bound to include a moral dilemma guaranteed to strip your powers with 100% accuracy before you reach level 5.

So the local DMs are all jackasses, eh?

Quote:

...but when i find a group like that, i will leave your traditional groups your paladins and take my crusader to such a group.

And I wish you enjoyable gaming when you do.

thank you, i have to deal with Jerkwad DMs and i thank you for your blessing.

Jaelithe wrote:

Zhayne wrote:

Except it doesn't remotely work.

And we're back to opinion. Clearly other people of intelligence think it indeed does.

SKR himself has said that RP limitations do not, in anyway, form any kind of mechanical balance, and years of experience has taught me the same.

Why? Because it's completely subjective. If you're going to make a game mechanic, it needs to be clear, concise, unambiguous, and objective. Alignment is anything but that.

Add to that, of course, that RP and mechanics should be separate entities, and alignment remains a total crock.

i agree with that too, RP and Mechanics should totally be two separate entities.

Except it doesn't remotely work.

There shouldn't be 'a way to play a class'. A class is just a mechanical framework, it should not have any personality attached to it.

i agree with that philosophy a class is merely a mechanical framework and a package of abilities to quantify what your character can do in the setting, the characters personality, training, and experiences should determine their class, not the other way around. in this case that applies to a variety of classes. paladins not being the only victim, but one of the more notable ones. balancing a class by applying behavioral restrictions does nothing to balance it except give the Douchebag DM the tools required to be a Douchebag. there are a lot of published adventures where if you bring a Paladin, they won't remain a Paladin very long, the vest majority, because Paizo and many third party publishers love their moral dilemmas and often make doing the bad thing a requirement to survive and complete the Adventure Path. for example, there was an old adventure path where you had to sacrifice a young human child to save the world, which a paladin just shouldn't be involved in.

Zhayne wrote:

The game uses it as such, though. You must be this alignment or you can't take this class, or you lose your powers, or you can't take this feat ...

For certain classes, that's entirely appropriate - it's a tradeoff, a limitation accepted in exchange for greater power otherwise, just like some classes sacrifice HD/skill points/BAB/saving throws/magic/proficiencies/unique class features in exchange for being better at something else. That was the original idea with the Paladin - take a Fighter, impose a strict code other Fighters need not live by, and they get cool powers beyond other Fighters for their trouble (I don't want to start arguing the finer points of Paladin/Fighter balance or anything, it's just an example of how and why that's supposed to work).

the only reason i would consider that Valid in 1e is because Fighters HAD NO FEATURES and they had to put some kind of limitation upon them.

PF Paladins aren't Variant Fighters with Extra Features Anymore. in fact, they are balanced with the Barbarian and Ranger, whom all 3 of which are weaker than the wizard, and the wizard has no alignment restrictions.

because they are no longer an upgraded version of fighters, they no longer need alignment restrictions, and using alignment restrictions to balance a class is just bad game design.

and even in 1e, the high attribute requirements kept paladins from seeing many tables. instead of straightjacketing people to force them to behave a certain way to play a specific class, why don't we accept that the alignment restrictions do nothing to balance the class and only encourage the classes that have them to annoy the table by behaving in ways detrimental to the survival of their teamates.

Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

i found out, i would prefer a setting where divine casting and similar stuff is either learned by training or passed by ritual and the gods don't have the active influence they do, allowing divine characters like paladins the desired freedom to do what they wish, while also encouraging the need for heroes and adventurers, because with Pathfinder's setup of overinvolved deities that interact with, influence and control everything, the need for heroes is kinda not there because the gods can do whatever the heck they please with their limitless cosmic power.

Well, then ... there you go. Find a game like that, and leave us primitives our paladins, thanks.

the issue is it isn't easy to find a game like that, i have to filter through 3 dozen groups whom aren't like that to find 2 groups that are. a long process that takes too much effort. finding such a unique and specialized group is like finding a needle in a haystack, and in my own area, finding a group that allows faeries, while similar to finding a needle in a large haystack, is nowhere near as large a haystack as finding a group that ignores alignment restrictions and encourages open play of whatever concepts you feel without fear of losing your powers. in fact, playing a paladin in any group in my area, for the majority of them, is bound to include a moral dilemma guaranteed to strip your powers with 100% accuracy before you reach level 5. plus i have a schedule to work around, and finding such an accommodating game that doesn't interfere with my food locker job or another gaming group, is even harder than that. both IRL and online.

but when i find a group like that, i will leave your traditional groups your paladins and take my crusader to such a group.

Jaelithe wrote:

I, too, like the alignment system, when it's employed as a guideline and/or baseline and not a straitjacket.

The game uses it as such, though. You must be this alignment or you can't take this class, or you lose your powers, or you can't take this feat ...

i hate that part

you must be this alignment or you can't take this class, or you lose your powers, or you can't take this feat is bad game design in general. it's like saying, you must be this race or you can't take this class or you can't get this particular attribute bonus.

racial abilities should generally be removed or streamlined to where you don't have to worry about racial bonuses and alignment restrictions should generally be removed. i'm not saying alignment is a bad tool, but it should never be a means to balance a class and should never be mentioned in a class. behavioral restrictions are never a good balancing factor, either because everyone finds loopholes around them, or a power mad DM abuses his power to screw you over with them with greater than 100% success rate at crippling you

I, too, like the alignment system, when it's employed as a guideline and/or baseline and not a straitjacket.

my problem with the alignment system is when it is used as a straightjacket and the gods are so overly interactive with the setting, that they can strip your powers for their amusement. gods are just as bad a straightjacket as alignments and alignment restrictions. i know we have disagreements on opening up certain classes, but i feel those classes shouldn't be forced to wear those straightjackets either. a DM or several in my experience, will seek excuses to make paladins fall with 100% accuracy not matter what choice you make, so generally, it is a PITA to travel with a paladin in the party because they tend to be so restrictive it hinders the party, and well, i created a 90% variant for the groups that can't stand to travel with a paladin due to the alignment restrictions but have players that want the mechanics of something similar without having to worry about a DM abusing their power.

when you include a character with alignment restrictions, you draw two camps, people seeking loopholes to work around the restrictions, and DMs whom abuse the restrictions as a means to screw their players over. which generally makes alignment restrictions not a good idea because you either have a character whom has no alignment based downsides due to getting away with the loopholes or a completely powerless, worthless and gimped character because they had an abusive DM find a guaranteed way to cheat them out of their powers to inflate their own DM ego.

i found out, i would prefer a setting where divine casting and similar stuff is either learned by training or passed by ritual and the gods don't have the active influence they do, allowing divine characters like paladins the desired freedom to do what they wish, while also encouraging the need for heroes and adventurers, because with Pathfinder's setup of overinvolved deities that interact with, influence and control everything, the need for heroes is kinda not there because the gods can do whatever the heck they please with their limitless cosmic power.

personally, i prefer a setting where the gods do not play an active role in the natural world, and because the gods are so distant, clerics, paladins and such, could be whatever alignment they please because the powers come from ritual, or even a form of highly specialized training, than from some big extradimensional being with an attitude problem and the ability to screw over people permanently because he feels like it. my problem with Pathfinder, and well, Golarion when it comes to alignment restrictions, is the gods interfere too much with the natural world and have too much influence. if gods and strictures didn't have so much influence and were a lot less active in enforcing mortal behaviors, i would like the setting much better, because with the amount of divine interaction, what is the need for adventurers? the gods can solve everything. they are all powerful and shape everything. and stripping powers, counts as interfering with the natural world. i'd rather that divine powers be learned rather than bestowed, or even granted by ritual, and have gods that simply can't interfere with the natural world, not that they won't, but they just can't. rather than the all powerful solve everything model they follow today.

the Crusader is no more BS than an old man in robes being able use mathematics to turn a handful of bat feces and sulfur into a 45 foot diameter radius globe of fire from over 600 feet away with perfect precision. no way our ballistic technology will ever be that accurate.

it is no more BS than a guy whom can wave around a cross, sprinkle 5,000 gold coins worth of diamond dust and bring a dead guy back to life after ten minutes of prayer. yay, this one guy you can find in any metropolis, can ressurect you by sprinkling a bunch of diamond dust and spending 10 minutes in prayer. if only our world had priests that could do that

it is no more BS than a girl in a fancy dress whom can dance so well, that she gives every ally whom sees her dance, a selective moral bonus to attack and damage rolls. since when did seeing a cute girl dance in a sultry manner give bonuses? shouldn't arousal be a penalty?

it is no more ridiculous than a weasly guy in leather whom can deal more damage to a foe because he simply hates them and they killed his parents. if hate alone were truly a source of power, my damage bonuses would be godlike.

it is no more ridiculous than a native american shaman wearing the hides of beasts from the Sahara desert, whom can transform into prehistoric dinosaurs assumed to be extinct for billions of years, despite having never seen nor studied a dinosaur in his life because they were extinct for billions of years

it is no more ridiculous than a japanese schoolgirl, whom wears black pajamas, whom wields a daisho consisting of a pair of tokugawa wakazashi and can disappear at will

it is no more BS than brain eating space aliens, fire breathing sentient reptiles, or sentient jello

it is no more BS than a medieval English fighter wearing Renaissance era Italian armor designed to combat firearms, worshipping ancient Greek Gods that were banned for over a millenium and wielding a Persian Falchion

it is no more BS than a tiny elf whom could put you to sleep by looking you in the eyes from 30 feet away, could curse you with all sorts of penalties, including a few lethal terminal illnesses, and could use your dead son's skull as a focus to inflict you with eternal suffering while she offers prayers to some old lady called the weaver.

for some reason, we can all suspend our disbelief for stuff like this, but when we see a paladin whom isn't lawful good, a priest whom cheated his god to regain his lost divine powers, or a demon that isn't chaotic evil, we can't suspend it? how many Persian myths include clever third sons whom tricked a godlike being into giving them irrevocable supernatural benefits?

Or go the 4e route and have the powers invested in you via ritual, which then cannot be taken away.

i like that idea much better than what PF currently went with.

No character not in the gods' service should have to adhere to an alignment. It's ridiculous.

No character in the gods' service, however, should be exempt from justifying their actions and even, to an extent, thoughts to the being who provides their divine power.

Frankly, the elimination of alignment would not prevent a smart, strong DM from requiring certain behaviors from an adept, cleric, inquisitor, oracle or (especially a) paladin. The simple solution to not needing to justify behavior is to not play a character whose power is chronically derived from another being, because it gives that being the right to impose its requirements on you in exchange for wielding its might. Simple quid pro quo.

that is what i liked about Eberron, was that the gods had less interaction with and less influence over the world, which removed a mountain of alignment restrictions across the board.

i'm not saying every setting would have to be like this, but i would like an option akin to this in case of a highly restrictive DM whom is the type to intentionally misuse his powers and deliberate make paladins fall with "you are evil either way" scenarios, which i experience too much. and well, it discourages a lot of concepts when a DM can hold the class features you earned by simply playing the game hostage as a carrot to encourage certain behaviors and can remove them by sheer fiat.

Crusader

the Crusader Alternate class, for those whom want the paladin mechanics but don't want to deal with alignment restrictions or the code of conduct. i mostly took the paladin base and filed off the serial numbers while making a few tradeoffs. if you notice the lack of mercies and the lack of channel.

it is more alignment flexible than the core paladin and different enough in abilities to be similar to an archetype. it also accommodates other religions and philosophies for concepts where a deity wouldn't be appropriate because of the need for a set of ideals. it also gets around the code of conduct and alignment restrictions be being somewhat weaker, but more versatile in how it can apply it's abilities. it doesn't have the big bonus against dragons and outsiders, can't channel and doesn't have mercies, but has some combat feats and a few more skill points, even if it is set up to not utilize paladin archetypes.

if you call it a paladin without the scriptures, a paladin with the serial numbers filed off, or a paladin without the alignment restrictions as an insult, that was intentional, the Crusader steals a lot from the paladin chassis and encourages to choose a deity or religion from a wider list and work with the DM to create your own code of conduct, rather than spelling out the code for you in a prewritten format as if all paladins were the same. while you can still play a clone of Sir Roland if you desire, you have the freedom to delve into other divinely gifted crusader archetypes, which i will let you seek out for yourself, and it also makes a good class for divinely imbued knight equivalents such as a Samurai whom draws divine power from the bushido code or a Jedi whom prioritizes combat prowess over their more limited use of the supportive light side powers. it is intended to strongly resemble a paladin and has a 90% resemblance and that is the intent.

I think this the variant paladin write-up is largely if not entirely inappropriate to this thread. I suggest starting one of your own.

Incidentally, I despise the new class. It's a paladin without a paladin's rightful strictures. I'd neither allow it nor play in a game that did.

that is because it is a crusader built using the paladin chassis rather than a true paladin. don't think of it as a paladin but a generic crusader. it still has to be one step behind it's deity's alignment, which means you can choose your scriptures instead of being forced with a specific set. for crusaders of other faiths.

Variant Paladin

i opened it up to accommodate a variety of deities, alignments and religions, and included a patch for neutrality. the name is kind of generic, but it is an alternate class that misses out on some of the paladin abilities and misses out on a lot of the archetypes.

it's smite is weaker than that of a traditional paladin against big name foes, but more versatile in how it applies, and by giving up mercies and channel, it gains additional combat feats, effectively allowing the paladin to be better at healing. i would say it is more combat oriented than a traditional paladin, but not neccessarily stronger. it lost the code of conduct in the transition because the code of conduct is for traditional lawful good paladins and i didn't want to come up with 10 variant codes.