I decided to bring this up after reading the Asmodeus Paladin thread.
I can really find nothing in Hell Knights that would distinctly prevent a paladin from operating in their ranks. I think a careful paladin could pull it off, and might even do it to ensure the Hellknights integrity.
Simply what do you think?
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I decided to bring this up after reading the Asmodeus Paladin thread.
I can really find nothing in Hell Knights that would distinctly prevent a paladin from operating in their ranks. I think a careful paladin could pull it off, and might even do it to ensure the Hellknights integrity.
Simply what do you think?
Hellknights canonically have paladins as members. Even a couple of Lictors are paladins. So this is not a problem. Despite the name, they tend to be mostly LAwful Neutral rather than Lawful Evil (although there's probably more Evil than Good members as they are abunch of fairly brutal bastards).
Creative Director
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In fact, I believe one or two of the Hellknight orders might even be LED by paladins. Not sure off the top of my head.
Hellknights are lawful, more than anything else. The majority of them are lawful neutral, but there are probably an equal number of lawful good and lawful evil ones. Some of those lawful good ones are indeed paladins.
It's worth noting that Hellknights do not serve hell. They use the word "hell" as part of their intimidation process and as part of their inspiration for how they're organized. Sure, there is indeed some "infernal infiltration" into the organization, and Asmodeus and his church do use and manipulate the Hellknights... but not all Hellknights, and not all Hellknight orders, are evil.
In fact, if you really want to play a so-called "paladin of Asmodeus," playing a cavalier or fighter or ranger that starts taking Hellknight prestige class levels is pretty much the exact character you're looking for, I suspect.
Think of Hell knights as a Hell themed pack of Judge Dreads.
In fact, if you really want to play a so-called "paladin of Asmodeus," playing a cavalier or fighter or ranger that starts taking Hellknight prestige class levels is pretty much the exact character you're looking for, I suspect.
Ranger really isn't a good choice for the prestige class, but it does stand to reason that some of the Orders do have rangers among their ranks like the Order of the Chain for hunting down escaped slaves or the Order of the Scourge for tracking criminals.
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Creative Director
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In fact, if you really want to play a so-called "paladin of Asmodeus," playing a cavalier or fighter or ranger that starts taking Hellknight prestige class levels is pretty much the exact character you're looking for, I suspect.Ranger really isn't a good choice for the prestige class, but it does stand to reason that some of the Orders do have rangers among their ranks like the Order of the Chain for hunting down escaped slaves or the Order of the Scourge for tracking criminals.
Why not? It's a little harder to qualify for due to the heavy armor requirement, I guess, but by picking things like humanoid favored enemies and favored terrains like urban and underground, you could build a pretty cool Hellknight bounty hunter.
Think of Hell knights as a Hell themed pack of Judge Dreads.
That really depends on the order, Order of the Scourge in my opinion are Judge Dread analogs while the Order of the Pyre reminds me of the The Fireman from Fahrenheit 451.
It's worth noting that, like Clerics, Rangers have a lot to gain by taking the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat because of the existence of mithril armor. A ranger with heavy proficiency can wear mithril full plate without losing access to any of his class features.
Likewise, the ranger's many class skills, special options, combat style, saving throws, and even animal companion (maybe a horse) would be very nice for a hellknight.
Hellknights are 'strongly skewed towards LN' from the Inner Sea World Guide so Paladins can certainly work with them. We have to remember that there are also many different orders of Hellknights. A Paladin may have something to say about the Order of the God Claw and their dogma with LE deties or with the majority of the orders centered in Chelix.
On the ranger hand, you could see one being a hellknight. The Order of the Pike itself hunts down various monsters, for example. A DM could adjust the armor feature to include some kind of medium armor instead of the plate. OR the ranger could prefer not to use the plate armor.
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Plenty of paladins won't have a problem at all with the Order of the God Claw. Their job is not to root out heresy, it's to inspire, encourage, lead, and protect mankind (or their own particular sophont race). A LG inquisitor might hate them for saying that Asmodeus has lawful virtues, but a paladin most certainly doesn't have to.
The order of the God Claw actually looks like a really good order for a paladin. As does the minor order of the pike.
Now a hellknight paladin might get put in between a rock and a hard place every now and then, but as long as he sticks to his principles, he'll do great.
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Plenty of paladins won't have a problem at all with the Order of the God Claw.
The Order is also more weighted towards good, than evil, being patronized by LG Torag and Iomedae, as well as LE Asmodeus (and some LN folk).
Iomedae has to be somewhat more tolerant of LN folk, in particular, considering she spent the greater percentage of her life serving a LN god, Aroden, and has been incorporating / 'inheriting' his followers and clergy and churches ever since.
It would be an interesting bit of characterization if Iomedae started out more of a cavalier / glory goddess (a bit more towards the LN side of LG), than a paladin / chivalry goddess, and it was only seeing the terrible decline of her fellow Aroden-serving goddess Arazni, that she began to yaw more strongly towards goodness, as her sister-goddess was bent towards evil, her own 'goodness' being reinforced and strengthened in reaction to Arazni's increasing corruption and malevolence.
Then again, the same could be said of Shelyn and Zon-Kuthon's relationship. They may similarly 'feed each other' and Shelyn's passion for goodness, mercy, hope, etc. may come as a violent reaction to her brothers increasing turn towards evil and oppression. Hard to say, since there's not much indication of whether or not gods are 'more outsider than outsider' and can change alignment at all (barring crazy circumstances, such as happened to Zon-Kuthon and Arazni).
It's conceivable that gods are slaves to their natures, and unable to change their minds, lie about their alignment or say something like 'do as I say, not as I do.'