I heard a rumour that paladins could be chaotic good. Is this true? If so, how would that work? Thanks for your help in advance.
Maybe in a Dragon article. I don't recall seeing any Chaotic Paladins in the main hard covers. That said allowing Chaotic Paladins is really pretty easy. Just modify the alignment requirement.
In my campaign all Paladins are Chaotic Good. Basically I gave each of the Gods specific Holy Warriors mostly by taking prestige classes from the Complete Divine and the Book of Exalted Deeds. In my Campaign traditional Paladins are the Holy Warriors of the Goddess of Emotion - hence all Chaotic Good, but still sworn to do good deeds etc. They wander around defending young paramours who have found 'True Love' (Patent Pending) from arranged marriages and other goody two shoe type things.
You don't even really have to worry about play balance in my opinion. Its actually often a heck of a lot more problematic for the player sworn to do good in the face of the law then one who must try and do good and remain within the law. A Lawful Paladin faced with an arranged marriage type situation councils the miscreant thinking of skipping town or what not to consider her/his duties and keep a stiff upper lip and except the fact that life is not always about what one wants. A Chaotic Good Paladin in the same situation helps the individual skip town and meet their paramour for a wedding on the run with the law, angry parents etc. hot on their tail.
Later on she has to deal with the fact that she is wanted for 'kidnapping'. Our Paladin is now on the lamb with individuals she is absolutely not allowed to hurt looking for justice. Said Paladin comes to fear things like angry mothers more then Dragons. You can fight back against Dragons but a Paladin cannot strike down some ones angry mother because she is convinced you kidnapped her darling son. Faced with this situation our Heroine has only one good tactical option – she can't fight hence ... Run Away ... Run Away – forced to live a life begging strangers to hide her from angry parents and such. It can be a hard life being Miss Goody Two Shoes.
In Unearthed Arcana they have three alternate paladins, freedom, tyrany, and something else (along the evil lines). Though I haven't read that part of the book much I would guess the paladin of freedom would be chaotic good.
In the PHB it states that if a paladin ceases to be lawful good they cannot gain any more paladin levels but still do retain all special abilities but can gain levels if they atone for their wrong deeds through the used of an Atonement spell as described in the PHB pg. 201 in the Atonement spell description.
And by the way I like your avatar TPKer101. Its almost like I didn't have the same one! :)
I heard a rumour that paladins could be chaotic good. Is this true? If so, how would that work? Thanks for your help in advance.
In our gaming group, a Paladin's alignment needs to match the Deity's. It makes no sense for a Paladin to have to be Lawful Good if the Deity he / she serves is True Neutral, Lawful-Evil, whatever. In terms of a code of conduct, the Paladin needs to act in line with the Deity's teachings / belief system, etc.
There was an article in Dragon 310 (Page 46)about paladins of Lawful Good through Chaotic Neutral Alignment. I believe 311 or 312 also has rules for Evil Paladins/Blackguard type characters.
Personally, I like paladins just the way they are.
They have an amazing collection of abilities, compensated by a very restrictive code of behavior. LG is arguably the most ideologically narrow alignment available -- I think its a good fit.
Just my two coppers.
Jack
In Unearthed Arcana they have three alternate paladins, freedom, tyrany, and something else (along the evil lines). Though I haven't read that part of the book much I would guess the paladin of freedom would be chaotic good.
Yes, Dragon 310 and Unearthed Arcana both have official chaotic good paladins.
The Dragon variant is focused more on chaos than good, whereas the Paladin of Freedom from Unearthed Arcana is more focused on good than chaos. Just a personal taste thing.
In our gaming group, a Paladin's alignment needs to match the Deity's. It makes no sense for a Paladin to have to be Lawful Good if the Deity he / she serves is True Neutral, Lawful-Evil, whatever. In terms of a code of conduct, the Paladin needs to act in line with the Deity's teachings / belief system, etc.
True, but between the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Complete Devine with a few homebrews thrown in one can have a personalized holy warrior for every Goddess or God.
yeah, d20srd.org has the info on the Paladin of Slaughter, Tyranny, and Chaos.
I have a Palidan of Slaughter 6/Blackgaurd 1. The Palidan of Slaughter is just like a Blackgaurd. It even has the same special abilities.
I never agreed with the restriction to being lawful good for a paladin in the PHB. I believe that every deity will have a champion fighter class they bestow powers too, a holy warrior. But I believe that those holy warriors must have the same alignment of their god. There for a LE god would have a LE paladin.
One thing that I like about 3E DnD (never played 1E or 2E, so I don't know if they are the same) is the fact that they say that all the rules in the core rule books are for guiding the DM in making his adventures, that they are all subject to his call.