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Can such a thing exist ?
A class all about maintaining the balence between good and evil law and chaos ? could such a class even function or would the paradoxcial descision required drive most True Neutral Paladins Insane ?
with "Smite Other" ;) anything outside of a true neutral is fair game for balencing hehehe.
Or is a True Neutral Paladin just another name for an existing class ? if so which class would you conisder to be a True Neutral Paladin if such a thing can even exist.
I kind of have this thing about paladin being not the good word for "holy warrior/fighter". I would say yes, in the case of a holy warrior representing a true neutral god, but that might not be the typical Pathfinder Paladin.
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Paladins are always going to be lawful good. Many people will say that there can be other types. But this game does have a history and changing the flavor of what has been core for so long is not something I would welcome.
The warrior for balance has always been classically the stomping grounds of druids and the like. I think a character of any class in The Green Faith for Golarion would be a good example as well.
But of course you can always put things in your game that keep you and your group happy. But taking a daisy and calling it a rose is on par with calling something a Paladin that is not LG IMO.
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For those of you who are doubting what a paladin truly is, I suggest you go back and play some of the old-school RPG's that featured them like Final Fantasy IV (Cecil is a great example) and the like. They at the very BASE represent all that is good and right and strive to make root out evil and injustice.
If you don't want that, then fine, don't play a paladin. It is like saying "I want to play a Druid, but without all the stupid nature stuff and instead I want to use any kind of armor and get sneak attacks."
Check out the Concordant Killer (from WotC's MM4) to see what a creature wanting balance between Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos might look like.
I think my brain just broke.
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Can such a thing exist ?
No. Paladins are paragons of law and good. Read the rulebook. If you want a True Neutral champion, create one! Be creative and do not use the term "paladin".
By the way, there is now an evil "paladin" as well. The antipaladin. Just so you know.
I think it is fairly obvious that while a paladin may serve a non-lawful good deity, he remains Lawful Good. It is a Lawful Good class.
People want a paladin for every alignment, event and colour combination. Please, please understand that a paladin is Lawful Good. That means the other eight odd alignments do not apply.
Unless you're an antipaladin, then you're Chaotic Evil and the other eight odd alignments do not apply.
For those of you who are doubting what a paladin truly is, I suggest you go back and play some of the old-school RPG's that featured them like Final Fantasy IV (Cecil is a great example) and the like. They at the very BASE represent all that is good and right and strive to make root out evil and injustice.
Heh. Um. You know that D&D preceeded your (old-school) FFIV (1991) by some years, right? :)
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Heh. Um. You know that D&D preceeded your (old-school) FFIV (1991) by some years, right? :)
MI still count Cecil as more paladin than any character I've heard of since. :P
Criminal. Just criminal. That is class vilification!Yeah yeah, whacha gonna do, smite me? ;)
Cast protection from evil... You evil-doer!
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You could remove alignments altogether and then write a new paladin codex or three to suit your fancy.
Ages ago in Dragon magazine there was an article that detailed a paladin of each alignment. There were two for true neutral that I think they were called Paramander and Paramandyr. One strove to maintain the balance of good v. evil while the other, in a more zealous role, attempted to enforce the balance by slaying those of extreme alignments.
I thought these were very cool and most, if not all - depending on the campaign, could be very workable. However, I have no recollection of their powers.
I think this link may be the article in question, but since it was so long ago that I read it I don't really recall.
http://members.tripod.com/Lord_Eadric/paladins/paladins.html
Check it out for yourself - I hope you find it helpful.
It was authored by the esteemed James Jacobs himself. But he's not particurlarly fond of it. The same way Leonard Nimoy wouldn't have been too happy to discuss his role in "Zombies Of The Stratosphere". (Having to fight the hero in SEVEN! underwater fights may have had something to do with it.)
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As someone who likes paladins of different alignments, I still find the idea of a paladin of balance to be philosophically and mechanically inelegant.
I have written a true neutrality-friendly paladin variant that gets to choose a smite target from the ranger's favoured enemy list, or can select the ability to smite followers of an opposed deity or organization at GM discretion. It also swaps DR 5/ and 10/evil for DR 2/- and 4/- and when smiting can stun a foe on a crit, instead of banishing outsiders. It otherwise plays as either a paladin or antipaladin, without the aura of good/evil, detect evil/good, or alignment-based spells.
Another mechanical option would be to replace Smite with the cavalier's challenge, but I think that makes the paladin a little too generic. Even if we remove alignment I think the class needs a focus on a particular divine mandate, and that means smiting something specific as opposed to just challenging whatever happens to be in front of them at the moment.
(I should also note that my personal preference is for an Any Good paladin and Any Evil antipaladin, but I wrote the any-alignment version as an exercise for a game in which alignment works somewhat differently - aligned outsiders also got a bit of tweaking.)
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The plethora of paladins article came along YEARS before such a one was written by James Jacobs. it's one of the most famous Dragon magazines, ever.
His assortment of paladins was 3eish, and he loathed writing them and having to write them.
The old school ones were:
NG Myrikhan - think holy ranger
NE Aarikhan - think wild huntsman
CG Garath - CG Church Guardians?!?
LE illrigger (jsut a cool name) - assassin, knight, spellcaster
LN Lyan - Superman Templars.
CN Faran -Barbarian tribal champions
TN Paramander - Manipulator of alignments seeking balance
FN Paramandyer -Obliterator of extreme alignments, in death is balance.
Note: These are clerical True/False Neutral, not Druidic neutral. they aren't subsets of the druidic faith.
And of course Paladin - LG and Antipaladin - CE
==Aelryinth
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Back in the day for a home game I created a paladin of neutrality. It was a tad extra work for the GM but it worked well. Most encounters are of like aligned creatures. If encounters are mixed, the GM calculated the average alignment of the encounter, weighing higher CR creatures more. The paladin would become opposed to the alignment of the encounter. If the encounter is neutral, the paladin losses all paladin abilities except for armor and weapon proficiencies. When attacking neutral creatures it is up to the GM to determine weather atonement is necessary.
I can see why you don't like LG paladins. As a thread necromancer, they would smite you!
A guy I used to play with back in the day (15yrs ago) was playing a AD&D druid (even farther back, the 80s). Then druids had to be NN and all about maintaining balance. His character took that to mean the party had to be of diverse alignments. He would kill PCs to make sure there were a balance of alignments in the group.
That's a pretty clerical view of alignments. Druids typically don't care about alignments at all...they were concerned about nature. the only ones who bothered with alignment stuff were the Heirophants, and that's because they were on a level with archpriests and archmages dealing with profound forces.
i.e. Druids are NOT Neutral clerics.
Yeah, he went a bit over the top. Too, butchering the characters of your friends is a great way to get kicked from a table.
==Aelryinth
A paladin is, first and foremost, a warrior. So druid doesn't really fit. If we're looking for an existing class, how about warpriest?
Warpriest would fit the mold perfectly.
==Aelryinth
Sure, alignment is mostly a joke and many deities should have a branch of their devotion as warriors to their cause. A Grayguard is a perfect name of a TN Paladin (not to be confused with the Grayguard v3.5 PrC from complete scoundrel).
If by Paladin you mean a holy warrior dedicated to the idea of maintain cosmic balance then yes you can have a true neutral paladin, just not the paladin class. I have to agree with many of the other posters that think that should not be a called a paladin. I think the reason that most people think of any holy warrior being a paladins is because in 1st edition the only holy warrior was the paladin. This has led to the idea that all holy warriors are paladins.
There are several classes that could make a decent champion of balance. A warpreist with the champion of the faith archetype would be perfect except that you have to choose from law, chaos, good or evil for your alignment focus. If you could convince your GM to allow you to choose neutral and only affect creatures with no neutral component to the alignment that would be perfect.
The best legal choice would probably be an inquisitor. They have the ability to detect any alignment at will. Bane can work as a good stand in for smite evil. You won’t have the sheer combat ability of a paladin but you will have better utility. Considering that you are supposed to be eliminating anything that gets too powerful that is probably not a bad thing. Paladins only have to worry about evil outsiders; you will have to deal with all 8 of the other alignments.
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I just don't get this crusade to force the actual Paladin class as this one specific LG-Only thing when multiple editions have already clearly labeled it as possibly being many other alignment things. The ideals of a Paladin have changed, shifted, and are different that they were 20 years ago. Paladins have come from different alignments AND ARE STILL CALLED PALADINS despite people labeling them differently.
Yes, at one point a Paladin HAD to be Lawful Good. Then that changed. Then came variants (AD&D 1st & 2nd ed.) Then came different versions that still used the class-name Paladin (v3.5 Paladin of Freedom, Paladin of Tyranny, Paladin of Slaughter. Then OFF came Alignment restrictions (D&D 4th and 5th edition). The ideal belief of LG-only is LONG gone because it no longer serves an actual purpose, at least as it originally had long ago. A Paladin is no longer a Fighter "Plus", thus the need for a alignment restriction no longer has any significance other than to make certain people happy when they pit them in Catch-22 scenarios with every intent to make them fall in mind.
But whatever, people can and do whatever they want in their own games. However the class isn't Mr(s). Snowflake any longer.
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I just don't get this crusade to force the actual Paladin class as this one specific LG-Only thing when multiple editions have already clearly labeled it as possibly being many other alignment things. The ideals of a Paladin have changed, shifted, and are different that they were 20 years ago. Paladins have come from different alignments AND ARE STILL CALLED PALADINS despite people labeling them differently.
Yes, at one point a Paladin HAD to be Lawful Good. Then that changed. Then came variants (AD&D 1st & 2nd ed.) Then came different versions that still used the class-name Paladin (v3.5 Paladin of Freedom, Paladin of Tyranny, Paladin of Slaughter. Then OFF came Alignment restrictions (D&D 4th and 5th edition). The ideal belief of LG-only is LONG gone because it no longer serves an actual purpose, at least as it originally had long ago. A Paladin is no longer a Fighter "Plus", thus the need for a alignment restriction no longer has any significance other than to make certain people happy when they pit them in Catch-22 scenarios with every intent to make them fall in mind.
But whatever, people can and do whatever they want in their own games. However the class isn't Mr(s). Snowflake any longer.
Very much agreed and seconded.
To the Op yes they can imo. Take what is said in this thread as suggestions. Not the gospel truth. Name the class whatever you want including Paladin. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Personally I don't see why not and no I don't care about tradition or the days of yore of D&D so don't bother bringing that up to try and convince me otherwise.
In the context of the game, 'playing a Paladin' means playing a LG holy warrior, a true blue hero type.
It does not mean 'playing a religiously devout warrior of any alignment I happen to pick'.
To stop any confusion, make your divine warrior any alignment you like, but don't call them paladins. Use the 'plethora of paladin' names above...they are perfect for that use.
==Aelryinith
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In the context of the game, 'playing a Paladin' means playing a LG holy warrior, a true blue hero type.
In the context of the game, a Paladin is a full BAB, 4th level divine caster (unless you take specific archetypes) that receives enormous benefits from having high charisma. The code is literally the only thing that binds the Paladin to a specific alignment, so if you're house ruling a different code then you can easily house rule a different alignment for the Paladin.
IF all you had to do was rub the alignment numbers off and sub new ones in, then playing a paladin would be a joke.
Why would you EVER want to be LG and follow that code if you could get all the powers and be any other alignment you wanted?
Paladins and their powers exist because of the code.
If you want to make a paladin of another alignment, start from scratch, and take the alignment into account.
==Aelryinth
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IF all you had to do was rub the alignment numbers off and sub new ones in, then playing a paladin would be a joke.
Why would you EVER want to be LG and follow that code if you could get all the powers and be any other alignment you wanted?
Paladins and their powers exist because of the code.
If you want to make a paladin of another alignment, start from scratch, and take the alignment into account.
==Aelryinth
How sad is it that you only play Lawful Good if you absolutely have to. I certainly don't need alignment restrictions to play a Lawful Good character.
How sad it is you think that people will always play LG if they can get all the paladin powers and be some other alignment.
Which is misconstruing what you are saying while you are exaggerating what I was saying.
The paladin's code is IMPOSED on you for playing a Paladin.
It is a cost of playing the character.
You can be LG and make up YOUR OWN CODE, if you feel like it, or ignore it entirely. Or you can not be LG. That has nothing to do with what we are talking about.
Either way, the number of LG paladins would drop through the floor, because why would you NOT get rid of the restriction, if you could keep all the abilities? No punishment for not adhering to the code for me!
Meh.
==Aelryinth
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If so many people believe in the necessity of a Paladin being "the LG guy with the code", then wouldn't they be doing that even if they didn't have to? If the number of so-called "proper Paladins" really would drop through the floor, isn't that an indication that the current paradigm needs to die, already?
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So... what, your only argument for keeping the Paladin as Lawful Good is to encourage alignment diversity? Because there wouldn't be "enough" Lawful Good characters if you could play a Paladin without that alignment? Is that seriously the argument you're trying to make?
So, seriously, the argument you're trying to make, is that there will be just as many LG players if paladins can be any alignment, so there's no reason not to do it?
Is that the argument YOU are trying to make?
See, I can play the unreasonable interpretation card, too.
==Aelryinth
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No, see, the difference is that I'm not trying to make that argument. I don't care if there are fewer LG characters; I will continue playing LG characters, as will many others. I'm just not such a stick-in-the-mud that I feel like I need to force others to play a specific alignment.
Neither am I. If you dont want to be shoed in to LG, don't play a paladin. If you don't want a non-Neutral alignment, don't play a druid. If you want to be Lawful, don't be a barbarian. If you don't want to be lawful, don't play a monk.
Blah blah blah.
You have options. If you don't like the alignment restriction, choose another character. You have the choice.
Next, you're going to trot out that you should be able to use Holy Avengers, too. All benefits, no restrictions.
You call it being a stick in the mud ont he game's part. I call it greed on the player's part, wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
==Aelryinth
Inquisitor is the best fit for a Neutral Paladin.
Judgement being a more reliable, more versatile Smite Evil, Bane being a quicker, more splashable Sword Bond, better Spells and Spell list, and a Domain/Inquisition to tie things together and define builds.
The Inquisitor looses out on the awesome self healing and condition immunity of a Paladin, but at later levels they can cast "Heal" so it's not entirely a wash. The loss of Paladin saves can be huge depending on Point Buy, but Judgement of Purity combined with the coveted Stalwart ability (which, unlike Evasion, is not easily obtained as a Ring) can greatly help stymie the gap.
On the other hand, Inquisitors get tons of skills and out of combat ability, as well as a ton of feats, all of which Paladins are in deficit of. With Solo Tactics, teamwork feats can provide a very large gain.
So, Paladins are one of the best designed martial classes around. But Inquisitors are arguably one of the best designed classes period. Spellcasting, damage, buffing, skills, and out of combat use, Inquisitors have it all.
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It's no one business to tell others that they can't call a NG Paladin a Paladin. We as a community can tell others in our community many things. Telling them their wrong to implement a change at their own tables is not one of them. I don't care how strongly one feels about the subject. You simply do not do it. Even if I did not agree with the OP it's not business to tell him he can't.
And yes your telling people they are doing it wrong. You can play a non-lawful good Paladin just don't call it a Paladin is doing just that. It's like those who are against change think that by adding "it's not that I'm against just change except" then pretty much show they are against change.