For the record, I now have this image in my head of this young paladin yelling, "I smite you, evil one, in the name of Asmodeus!" Asmodeus is ehind him, looking over his shoulder and saying, "What the- stop that! You are ruining my street cred in Hell!"
In the 3.5 Forgotten Realms book, Power of Faerun, there was the Heretic of the Faith feat.
Basically, it allows you to grossly violate your deities code of conduct, but not your class alignment restriction, without risk of loss of spells or class abilities. For clerics (and I assume paladins too, as they were eligible for the feat) you can be up to 2 steps away from your deity's alignment.
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First I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to post their thoughts on this thread.
I appreciate that I am getting all sorts of ideas and opinions; I also appreciate getting perspectives I don’t agree with.
One nice thing about this game is that there are lots of things open for interpretation.
Alignment is one area I am glad that things are not concretely spelled out, but there is room for interpretation.
Clerics and paladins are classes I do enjoy playing.
Quandry I realize that the rulebooks are setting neutral, and what may apply in the core rulebooks may be different to the particulars of the Golaron setting.
I have looked for something in print, to confirm your assertion that paladins can worship an ideal and not worship a god. I looked in the Inner Sea World guide, and didn’t find anything so I turned to some 3.5 sources. I looked in the “Gods and Magic”, and the Pathfinder Campaign setting books. On page 47 of the Pathfinder Campaign setting book there is a description of paladins and how they fit into Golaron. The page mentions the gods they serve, etc. There aren’t any examples of paladin’s that worship ideals. They may exist, but I haven’t found any examples of one. Perhaps I have missed something.
I do realize that my own preferences will color my outlook. Personally I dislike the idea of clerics druids, Oracles, Inquisitors, Paladins and Rangers getting their divine powers form something other then the divine, like a philosophy. I much prefer there to be some sort of entity at the other end, be they spirits, ancestors, gods devils demons etc…so in my home games, I structure things so that, everyone in order to get divine power has to worship some sort of entity. I also like the pantheist approach where an oracle will represent an entire pantheon or a grouping of powers. But those are my own preferences.
Now I don’t want such options to be taken out of the Core rulebooks, I would prefer them to be there. This game caters to a wider audience them myself.
Kevin Andrew Murphy, thank you that is a very interesting example, from CS Lewis’s last battle, about the Calormen soldier who wanted to serve honorably, and Aslan took his oaths and service as service to him, even though the soldier was born in Calormen, only knew of Tash, and probably all he knew was that Aslan was a “demon of horrific malevolent aspect” (I may be quoting the Tisroc incorrectly in a horse and his boy)
Creative Director
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In the 3.5 Forgotten Realms book, Power of Faerun, there was the Heretic of the Faith feat.
Basically, it allows you to grossly violate your deities code of conduct, but not your class alignment restriction, without risk of loss of spells or class abilities. For clerics (and I assume paladins too, as they were eligible for the feat) you can be up to 2 steps away from your deity's alignment.
Exactly the type of feat I'd never allow into Pathfinder. If you see us print something like this, I was asleep at the wheel, basically. Or, at the very least, terribly distracted by something.