No, just no.
I am all for code of honor and chivalric law, i really am, but that just down (really hard) a lot of ways of playing.
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1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them
Did medieval knights face harpies, dragons, beholders, rocs and vrocks?
Its in common lore that it is dishonarble to use a bow against a knight or worthy oponent.Says who?
That's a dumb restriction.
He's right that there is a historical precedent for archers as cowardly. Going as far back as the Iliad, Paris fights with a bow because he lacks the honor to fight in the fray. Of course the archers as dishonorable stereotype at that time is aided by their common use of poison.
That said, I don't think is should be outright banned for Paladins. You can fight honorably with a bow just like you can fight dishonorably with a sword.
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1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them
The problem with Chivalry is that assuming Knights actually followed it's rules is like assuming that 50's teenagers acted like Wally and the Beaver, or that Sheriffs in the old West acted like John Wayne.
why must we restrict paladins any further.
the code is already prohibitively restrictive enough.
by common lore, we can say that any weapon except a sword was deemed dishonorable.
but look at how many knights are portrayed using non sword based weapons.
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Did medieval knights face harpies, dragons, beholders, rocs and vrocks?
1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath themGiven those monsters it would be lawfull for a paladin to use a bow, but against giants, ogers, trolls, and Antipaladins?
By what law? I mean, what if the troll starts throwing rocks mid-combat? Is it already kosher for me to pull the bow out? Or maybe those rocks don't count? Maybe I need a Cleric around to decide?
Dude, stop over-reading and overthinking. As well as applying RL precedents to a game with dragons, ninjas, magical resurrection and disease removal.
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This is very true, but unlike Knights. Paladins actually do loose the divine favor of there god if they dont follow the rules.
1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath themThe problem with Chivalry is that assuming Knights actually followed it's rules is like assuming that 50's teenagers acted like Wally and the Beaver, or that Sheriffs in the old West acted like John Wayne.
None of which say anything about using ranged weapons being dishonourable. Using historical examples to try and force a further restriction onto Paladins is... *expletive deleted*.
Pathfinder is a fantasy game.
we should try not to shoehorn real world steriotypes into a completely fantasy based game that ignores several pieces of historical information.
it's a fantasy kitchen sink
and not every paladin is the same.
and they are already shoehorned enough.
should we shoehorn the Mechanical choices of a class that already has a huge amount of roleplaying restrictions that shoehorn it into a few basic archtypes.
I'm personally curious as to what the social structure was around these restrictions/attitudes in real life. Being charitable, I'll acknowledge there's a sense of fairness that using ranged weapons against someone violates, but then we enter the real world and psychic indulgences like that don't last very long against harsh reality, so who benefited from these codes?
As far as D&D is concerned, there's no reason for a Paladin to artificially limit himself this way.
"Lay down thine arms wicked despoiler corrupt scion of the abyss and I shall see your judgment is handled in accord with the halls of heaven and that a just verdict will be rendered upon you at the court of the Bone Yard. Refuse, and die without honor and be speed away to your ultimate tortures at the claws of creatures you have called masters!"
To GM... If that black guard doesn't drop the sword in 6 seconds I "twang" (shoot him with the bow).
Really even if you hold that using s bow on an honorable foe is dishonorable, why would the Paladin be fighting at all? It isn't like a Paladin is going to take seriously the "honorable" standing of an Evil foe who's looking for a fighting instead of peaceful resolution. Then put another way if the paladin is arrowing up mooks aren't these his inferiors by "chivalry" so it's perfectly alright.
The only case where this becomes an issue is if a Cleric of a Neutral order opposes the Paladin and insists combat by arms is the only solution. In almost all other "honorable" situations the Paladin should likely be trying to use words and not weapons.
Erastil is not a tree hugging elf bow god.
he is a patron of hunters.
a paladin of Erastil is more like a hunter than a knight.
why else is he depicted as a Moose Man with a Longbow?
Moose, like deer, are commonly hunted game, and the longbow, is also the weapon of a hunter. and Thus, Erastil is a symbolic representation of the concept of the hunter.
and Humans are more likely to worship Erastil than elves are.
elves are a rarity
and have very different views than most.
Erastil is not a tree hugging elf bow god.
he is a patron of hunters.
a paladin of Erastil is more like a hunter than a knight.
why else is he depicted as a Moose Man with a Longbow?
Moose, like deer, are commonly hunted game, and the longbow, is also the weapon of a hunter. and Thus, Erastil is a symbolic representation of the concept of the hunter.
and Humans are more likely to worship Erastil than elves are.
elves are a rarity
and have very different views than most.
Most of these things about Erastil are wrong, but the point of Shuriken Nekogami is correct, Erastil isn't an elf god.
I'm personally curious as to what the social structure was around these restrictions/attitudes in real life. Being charitable, I'll acknowledge there's a sense of fairness that using ranged weapons against someone violates, but then we enter the real world and psychic indulgences like that don't last very long against harsh reality, so who benefited from these codes?
As far as D&D is concerned, there's no reason for a Paladin to artificially limit himself this way.
The history is really neat concerning archery, Pritty much knights didnt like getting shot with bows. So they called it cowardly shunned the weapon and made it illegal threw the pope. No one but Knights listened, and peasants kept shooting them with arrows. The argument was, "we put down the bows when you get off your horse and take off all that metal."
I did kinda leave out that samuri "one of the most honorable organizations in history" were master horse bowmen.
but on the paladin archer thing, please if you play one. Please have a roleplaying reason for doing it. It damages my soul to see the class abused for min/max purposes.
I get the feeling that you want to further restrict the paladin class for some reason (i suspect that you just want to stick to classic images of characters), which is fine for you, and i guess that it's kinda ok to enforce it to your players (they agree to play your game after all) but please don't try to enforce it to the rest of the players. In my opinion making paladin archer an option was one of the best changes PF made.
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The reason the church banned the use of bows and crossbows in 1130, was to rack of more casualties, basically they wanted to thin out the nobles some, because there were simply too many. Also, probably because the church got something out of it. The Catholic church is crafty like that.
Keep in mind that Pathfinder's religions are also a bit more pragmatic than that, they recognize the sheer volume of incredibly dangerous monsters that fly, they would never tell their warriors that they can't use ranged weapons. Besides, the iconic paladin has a bow, it's not in hand, but she has one.
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1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them
It's a good thing none of the Pathfinder Paladins are Christian.
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Knights considered it cowardly because it allowed an untrained peasant to kill them, without having to invest a lifetime of training, buying expensive armor, weapons and a mount, and they still ended up dead, without even a chance to harm their foe.
Of COURSE they rendered them dishonorable and 'peasant' weapons.
The Church also passed the same rules on gunpowder weapons, especially those that could pierce armor.
Didn't stop the 'average' man from improving firearms, until knights became superfluous, and we did away with sword fighting entirely on the battlefield.
"Honor" in this context is 'Upper Class Sanctioned'. Paladins are not upper class...they are paladins. A peasant considers a bow completely honorable...so would an elf...and dwarves have no problems with crossbows. Only fools and 'nobles' would call a missile weapon ignoble, trying to get the fight back onto personal combat terms where they would dominate.
"honor" has no basis here in weapon choice.
==Aelryinth
I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
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I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
More like really weird, most other paladins would be warning you about your habits, telling you that fighting like that is suicidal.
More like really weird, most other paladins would be warning you about your habits, telling you that fighting like that is suicidal.I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
If by 'suicidal' they mean 'honorable', then yes! Am I completely surrounded by dishonorable knaves?
Seriously though, a character handicap like the one I mentioned is a great way for experienced players to make games challenging.
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after looking at a few Paladin builds im finding this increasing trend for paladin archers.
Yes, it seems that paladins are waking up and realising that tens of thousands of years of humanoid ingenuity coupled with divine inspiration has brought forth way more than just one weapon.
And it's not limited to weapons: Paladins are diversifying in all manner of things. Some of us are gay and openly admit it, and our divine patrons don't withdraw their divine mandates, so it clearly can't be wrong in the eyes of the gods.
Its in common lore that it is dishonarble to use a bow against a knight or worthy oponent.
Common lore meaning "I'm too clumsy to use this weapon, so I'll try to guilt you into fighting on my terms". Very Chelaxian outlook.
A peasant may not shoot a knight with a bow for he is a lesser. "unless the knight carries a bow of course"
Luckily for us paladins, we're not afraid of peasants. We treat them well and don't start with this "some people are worth less than others" tyranny crap, so they usually have no inclination to. The only ones who need to be afraid are tyrants.
And in the case of evil and misguided peasants? Let them use their bows. The divine fire burns hot enough in me to incinerate their arrows before they can harm me.
So under chivalric law, wouldnt a Paladin useing a bow against a non ranged oponent be violateing there code of conduct?
Maybe, but chivalric law holds no sway here.
Edit/ added
1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them
Is that 1130 Absalom Reckoning? What church was that? We're talking about 20 major ones (if you include the "church" of Lamashtu or Rovagug, deities who are more comfortable with secret cults) plus many and more minor ones.
And why is it only against Christians? What about Martins? Harolds? Will that church allow me to shoot Alains?
And it doesn't say anything about those firearms from Alkenstar. Are they in? Not that I have one of those - I'm a dervish and mostly use a scimitar (though I have a longbow for those situations I cannot reach the enemy. Which doesn't happen that often, since unlike my metal-encased fellow paladins, I'm a very mobile warrior, and my armour even enables me to fly for a short while!)
because unless its an elven paladin from some tree hugging elf bow god.
What tree hugging elf bow god are we talking about? Is he an ally of foe to the Stupid Stereotype and Racist Slander God? The latter doesn't sound very honourable, by the way. My teachings said a paladin should be virtuous in all things, and courtesy and tolerance were counted among those virtues.
If there is any bow god I know of, it's Erastil. And elves don't really follow him that often. They're too free-spirited for Old Deadeye. He did give the humans their first bows to show them how to hunt, at least according to the legends.
Most gods that are popular with elves as a whole aren't the kind of gods that have paladins among their faithful.
Paladins running around with a bow as there primary attack is silly
How so? Because they're not carbon copies of some narrow-minded stereotype?
I'd call that less silly than confusing there and their, to be honest.
"Honor" in this context is 'Upper Class Sanctioned'. Paladins are not upper class...they are paladins. A peasant considers a bow completely honorable...so would an elf...and dwarves have no problems with crossbows. Only fools and 'nobles' would call a missile weapon ignoble, trying to get the fight back onto personal combat terms where they would dominate.
Bah. A proper noble will just hire a crack shot and buy arrow-deflecting armour.
I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
This isn't stubborn.
This is overdoing it.
Nonsense like that gave the paladin class a bad name.
People's minds being stuck in the last millennium, thinking that a paladin character MUST annoy the rest of the party.
The last paladin I saw played that way died when he ran into the midst of a quartet of assassins. Smack in the middle, basically begging them to pump 8 sawtooth sabres' worth of sneak attacks into him.
A certain Abadan cleric... "failed to reach" him in time to take him back from the dead. He was very "heartbroken" to lose this jerk who was more a liability to the party and its goals than an asset.
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I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
This isn't stubborn.
This is overdoing it.
Nonsense like that gave the paladin class a bad name.
People's minds being stuck in the last millennium, thinking that a paladin character MUST annoy the rest of the party.
The last paladin I saw played that way died when he ran into the midst of a quartet of assassins. Smack in the middle, basically begging them to pump 8 sawtooth sabres' worth of sneak attacks into him.
A certain Abadan cleric... "failed to reach" him in time to take him back from the dead. He was very "heartbroken" to lose this jerk who was more a liability to the party and its goals than an asset.
+1
Thanks for saving me a bunch of typing.
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I don't think there should be no such mechanical restriction at all.
That said, there's nothing stopping you from playing a really archetypical paladin with a lot of principles exactly like that one. No ranged weapons, no flanking, no attacking an unarmed opponent, no attacking an opponent by surprise, no retreating from battle, and so forth. I'd love to play as a really stubborn paladin, myself!
This isn't stubborn.
This is overdoing it.
Nonsense like that gave the paladin class a bad name.
People's minds being stuck in the last millennium, thinking that a paladin character MUST annoy the rest of the party.
The last paladin I saw played that way died when he ran into the midst of a quartet of assassins. Smack in the middle, basically begging them to pump 8 sawtooth sabres' worth of sneak attacks into him.
A certain Abadan cleric... "failed to reach" him in time to take him back from the dead. He was very "heartbroken" to lose this jerk who was more a liability to the party and its goals than an asset.
New-age riffraff, is what these paladins today are. With their "tactics" and their "viable fighting styles". There used to be few paladins back in the old days because the vast majority died believing in their principles, no matter how outnumbered they were or how hopeless their battles were. And they died wielding a g*!+@#n longsword and shield. They didn't compromise. The few that survived became legends. They gave the title of paladin a certain prestige.
Nowadays, one in every ten adventurers is a bow-wielding, long-haired, free-spirited paladin that thinks the code is only a guideline. Disgraceful, I tell you.
Because losing somehow saves the village. Dying for your beliefs instead of living with them is somehow a greater choice. The only answer is the obvious one.
Code of the Dumb Paladin
Thou shalt only fight in the dumbest manner possible.
Thou shalt not win against intelligent opponents attacking at range.
Thou shalt always charge.
Thou shalt always detect evil then smite if evil is found.
Thou shalt not allow your friends to engage in fun, or have fun yourself.
Code of the Awesome Paladin
Thou shalt only fight in the most glorious manner possible.
Thou shalt not win against cowardly opponents attacking at range.
Thou shalt always charge.
Thou shalt always detect evil then smite if evil is found.
Thou shalt not allow your friends to engage in fun. *SNIPPED*.
Fixed for dishonorable slander!
.And they died wielding a g&~&*$n longsword and shield.
** spoiler omitted **
God blessed not g@% d~$ed. Unless they were on a quest to redeem the evil blade through virtuous acts. :P
i think we should all remember that the code that a paladin follows is different depending on each god.
i think most people are saying the a paladin has not only a code of honor for his deity but also a chivalric code (but they arent knights so that isnt the case).
my point is i dont see a problem with a paladin using a bow UNLESS the paladin code of his god strictly forbids him to do such a thing.
if he were to get into a fight with another code bounded character (pc or npc) as long as terms were agreed upon and nothing foul is afoot, then i dont see a problem.
Fixed for dishonorable slander!Code of the Awesome Paladin
Thou shalt only fight in the most glorious manner possible.
Thou shalt not win against cowardly opponents attacking at range.
Thou shalt always charge.
Thou shalt always detect evil then smite if evil is found.
Thou shalt not allow your friends to engage in fun. *SNIPPED*.
Et tu Brutus?
Actually here is something even more fun:
Thou Shalt not fight -- self defense is permissible.
Then go look up the legal definition of self defense -- it isn't what most people think it is.
God blessed not g@% d~%ed. Unless they were on a quest to redeem the evil blade through virtuous acts. :P.And they died wielding a g&~&*$n longsword and shield.
** spoiler omitted **
in 1E, Long/bastard sword and shield was the uberest fighting style! None of this + 1/2 Str nonsense.
===Aelryinth
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Then go look up the legal definition of self defense -- it isn't what most people think it is.Did this, it's a very long rule.
Exactly for those that want a very easy layman's version:
1. It isn't self defense if you walk up to them.
2. It isn't self defense if you argue with them.
3. It isn't self defense if you do not try and retreat first.
4. It isn't self defense if you use force disproportionate to the attack on you.
5. It isn't self defense if you attack in any way when the opponent runs or falls.
6. It isn't self defense if you aren't personally being attacked in a physical manner.
7. If you help provoke the attack in any way then it isn't self defense.
Then go look up the legal definition of self defense -- it isn't what most people think it is.Did this, it's a very long rule.Exactly for those that want a very easy layman's version:
1. It isn't self defense if you walk up to them.
2. It isn't self defense if you argue with them.
3. It isn't self defense if you do not try and retreat first.
4. It isn't self defense if you use force disproportionate to the attack on you.
5. It isn't self defense if you attack in any way when the opponent runs or falls.
6. It isn't self defense if you aren't personally being attacked in a physical manner.
7. If you help provoke the attack in any way then it isn't self defense.
Good point and did, will need to read more. I don't think the one I looked up was the most reliable source. Mind if I keep this layman's handy as a way to get kids to think about "self-denses" when they insist that their parents have told them that is to "okay to hit people back"? I'll keep the full legal text on hand as well.
Good point and did, will need to read more. I don't think the one I looked up was the most reliable source. Mind if I keep this layman's handy as a way to get kids to think about "self-denses" when they insist that their parents have told them that is to "okay to hit people back"? I'll keep the full legal text on hand as well.
I don't mind at all.
The long and short of it is: If you can call it fighting you aren't practicing self defense.
Crime requires 3 elements: Ability, Intent, and Opportunity.
If you can stop one of those three things you can generally stop the crime -- the easiest is opportunity -- just don't be in the area where crime happens, and don't let them into your personal space.
This isn't a guarantee of safety -- but it does work 90% of the time.
Most violence can be avoided by leaving the other person a face saving exit. If they can let it go without looking like a chump then they are less likely to attack.
EDIT: The following is a really, really great website about self defense, violence, basic human psychology, criminal psychology, and how to avoid, attract, and stop violence. It is also rather blunt, crude, and uses vulgar language at times. It is not for the very young, work, or the easily offended.
However if you are willing to listen and read what is actually there then it has a lot to teach: