The obvious answer is Cavalier, but there are good arguments for several others.
The movie First Night implies he has levels of Monk.
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot certainly acts like a Barbarian. This is backed up in Medieval Arthurian Literature by Lancelot sometimes going berserk and killing the wrong people, and his gaining of superhuman strength when "inspired" by Guinivere.
There are also arguments for Paladin, with him being somewhat of a holy knight (but not as holy as Galahad or Perceival, this is seen in the film Excalibur.
Of course there is boring old Fighter as a compromise class.
The obvious answer is Cavalier, but there are good arguments for several others.
I would say he is a Paladin not cavalier. A paladin until his fall for betraying his King and sleeping with his best friends wife (and queen).
The movie First Night implies he has levels of Monk. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot certainly acts like a Barbarian.
Please, if you want to be taken seriously don't cite a comedy and a pop culture rework of the myth as source material. :)
There are also arguments for Paladin, with him being somewhat of a holy knight (but not as holy as Galahad or Perceival, this is seen in the film Excalibur.
Of course there is boring old Fighter as a compromise class.
The movie 'Excalibur' is a great example of him, as well as 'Camelot' from the 70's.
In one he even 'Lay's on Hands' to save a knight he has accidently killed in a joust. That is of course before his fall.
Before falling, Lancelot was the greatest and most holy/devout of Arthur's knights and one could argue he (and many of them) were 'Mythic' characters. His 'rage' would probably be the mythic 'Flash of Rage' ability to represent his divinely inspired 'rightrous fury'.
His fall from 'Paladinhood' is probably the primary basis of the concept for the class when it was first written. His 'charisma' was also evident in that he was loved and respected by all he met, even his foes for the most part. Hence, again, why it was probably required to be so high in the orginal classes write up.
In AD&D, where the class was first published, it was required that a character have at least a 17 Charisma to even qualify for the class. No 17 or 18 Charisma, no Paladin. And in a time where there was no point buy, where roll 3d6, 6 times in order was the rule, Paladins were stupid rare to play. :)
After his fall I could see an argument for some sort of Cavalier.
But IMO he, Arthur and most of the knights where Mythic type characters. Excalibur is the perfect example of a Mythic artifact for example.
The Pythons actually did a lot of research on both Arthurian myth and Medieval History for Holy Grail.
I did read Chretian De Troyes (albeit in English translation) and Lancelot does go berserk on a number of occasions.
IMHO modern takes on a myth (Mists of Avalon, the BBC's Merlin) are also valid since we are talking fantasy here.
The Pythons actually did a lot of research on both Arthurian myth and Medieval History for Holy Grail.
I did read Chretian De Troyes (albeit in English translation) and Lancelot does go berserk on a number of occasions.
IMHO modern takes on a myth (Mists of Avalon, the BBC's Merlin) are also valid since we are talking fantasy here.
Not saying they did not do a lot of research. Just that the movie seriously exagerates things for comedic purposes, so the movie itself should not be used as a basis for the character.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Holy Grail and can (probably annoyingly) quote large sections by heart. But I would never use it as source material for 'actual' Lancelot.
Also one must keep in mind 20th century sensibilities are vastly different than the times where the original stories are set and how those characters would be thinking. Valor, truth, piety and 'righteous fury' are things that are not defined quite the same way today as they were then.
Lancelot would go into a 'divinely inspired' battle frenzy against evil (Smite Evil anyone?).
IMO to truly portray those Arthurian legends you have to keep that in mind.
I think my games are a little "lighter" than yours in tone (think Hercules or Xena)and can stand more silliness, but that's cool. A lot of people prefer more seriousness in games.
I'll have to look into Mythic. I haven't gotten mine yet.
If you happen to watch King Arthur (2004) featuring Clive Owens as Arthur, Keira Knightly as Guinevere, and Ioan Gruffard as Lancelot, I would peg Lancelot as an Order of the Cockatrice Cavalier, with maybe a few levels of Two-Weapon Fighter.
Lancelot was never a Paladin. He was a jerk his entire life. Well before his betrayal of Arthur, he would disguise himself as a weaker member of the Round Table and ride around to get into fights. No one would fight him, because they were all afraid of him. Very few if any of the Knight of the Round Table were Paladins, for the most part they were self centered jerks.
While Monty Python did exaggerate the traits of the knights from the legends, it was a lot less than you might think. Lancelot may not have been a berzerker, but he did ride around killing people, usually for no reason other than they bothered him or he was bored. I had a discussion with an English instructor after we had watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail as part of an English Lit class, and she agreed that while they exaggerated the characters, they also were closer in their portrayal of them than many more mainstream films.
Paladin ex-beserker, maybe? Given his heritage (raised by Fey apparently), he went from 'savage to civilized'. That would give you an excuse to 'break the rules' and allow him to go beserk on very rare occasions. After his fall, then he could go back to being a beserker and lose his paladin abilities.
I once read a novel about Percival in which Lance was a total D-bag, and I think the author stayed fairly true to the original stories. I can't remember the name of the book though (that twas back in HS, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth) - it may have just been 'Percival' (and on that note, the internet becomes worthless).
I read Mists of Avalon, and although I loved the book (great interpretation!), I wasn't too fond of how the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot stuff was handled... just ICKY.
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The problem I that the "original stories" are many and varied folk tales that differ widely. Imagine ten times as many writers as write Batman stories writing Lancelot stories with only 10% of them ever reading or hearing each other's works over several centuries.
Mm. I don't think either Paladin or Mythic fits the bill, but since there is so much variation in the differing stories, it depends what version of the legend you're trying to match. I would be more inclined to try and fit a (slightly) more historical version, and to me, that screams Fighter, maybe with a splash of Cavalier. Here's why.
In practically every version of the stories, Lancelot is acknowledged as the best of Arthur's knights. Not just in the joust, but with any damn weapon, or lack thereof, you'd care to name. And that, my friends, is the Fighter all over. Training with heavy armor, expertise in various weapon types, and feats to spare to pick up all the various combat tricks, I do believe this here is Lance to a T (or L, I suppose.) As a nod to his status as a British knight, I might consider making him the Roughrider archetype, but that could go either way.
Certainly, an argument could be made for some or all levels of Cavalier (in particular, the Challenge fits nicely), but I personally think that Lancelot's ultimate betrayal of his lord and his oaths sets him in a different category.
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I can't distinguish between all the different versions, but I thought that after Lancelot "fell from Paladinhood" (to use D&D terminology), he went crazy and lived as a mad hermit until his mind was restored.
I always thought that that counted as "atonement" and his paladinhood was restored.
But, I must say, the most recent version I read was T.H. White's and it is probably coloring my memory of the story.
@Vod Canockers--Who says paladins can't be jerks? Sometimes, reading through this site, it seems like that's all they are.
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Oooh!
According to wikipedia, in Malory he takes a couple of levels in cleric, officiates over Guinevere's funeral, rides off to the Holy Land and happily kills Moors and Saracens until he dies.
Sounds like a paladin to me!
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Ooh, I forgot all about Elaine, that sexy minx!
Anyway, yeah, with 18 different competing, some mutually exclusive, versions of the story, it's going to be pretty impossible to come up with his exact D&D stats.
I like how in White it's pretty much a consensual menage-a-trois until that bastard Mordred finds out...
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Anyway, yeah, with 18 different competing, some mutually exclusive, versions of the story, it's going to be pretty impossible to come up with his exact D&D stats.
You say that, but TSR did just that in their 1st ed book Deities and Demigods where, IIRC, he was a 20th level paladin.
Whatever our opinions, the original publishers of D&D not only thought that he was a paladin, but also that the paladin (sub-)class was designed around him, including Falling From Grace.
Touche.
Someone mentioned the scene from the musical Camelot, which is the most inspirational paladin scene on film (probably where D&D even got the concept of laying on hands). If you haven't seen the movie (I watched it over and over when I was a kid) youtube it. And then there's Excalibur which IMHO is the only other King Arthur movie worth a dang.
Lancelot was never a Paladin. He was a jerk his entire life. Well before his betrayal of Arthur, he would disguise himself as a weaker member of the Round Table and ride around to get into fights. No one would fight him, because they were all afraid of him. Very few if any of the Knight of the Round Table were Paladins, for the most part they were self centered jerks.
If we're looking at the source material I have to agree. The only Arthurian knight that one could argue is a paladin is Sir Galahad, Lancelot's bastard son.
In AD&D, where the class was first published, it was required that a character have at least a 17 Charisma to even qualify for the class. No 17 or 18 Charisma, no Paladin. And in a time where there was no point buy, where roll 3d6, 6 times in order was the rule, Paladins were stupid rare to play. :)
The Paladin originated in original D&D with the Greyhawk supplement (1975). And yes, 17 Charisma on 3d6 in that specific order (6th of 6 rolls) was a terribly high bar to entry. I rolled a 17 Charisma once and felt compelled to play one. I enjoyed it. And I died heroically holding off an overwhelming group of monsters so everyone else could escape. Damn giant scorpions with their poison (save or die in those days)...
rides off to the Holy Land and happily kills Moors and Saracens until he dies.
Not to mention that Moors are people of dark complexion (blacks) and Saracens are people of the Muslim faith fighting for the same scrap of earth the Christians and Jews are after for similar reasons. Just because the Crusade was a Catholic Church sanctioned war, doesn't make any good or lawful.
EDIT: Moor was a African or Arab Muslim.
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He's a Paladin, don't be silly with modern moral relativism.
After he fell, he took fighter levels. He is the exemplar of the class for the time.
Craig Frankum above mentions that the crusaders were not what we would consider Lawful Good, but it's irrelevant. Lancelot was from a long time before the stone fist of Christian obsessive control, his stories were about courtly love and the abstract notion of chivaly.
In any case, Frankum has set his target wrong. Nobody sane these days thinks that crusaders were the good guys, and in the Western heroic tradition at least, Saladin is (by d&d/PF terms at least) as much as an absolute Lawful Good Paladin as possible (Sarenrae if you want to stat him).
It makes me wonder if any of Roland's companions would make the cut for the "Lancelot wasn't a paladin" naysayers.
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If I were building him (or most of the Knights of the Round Table), I'd go with cavalier.
Since he's a fairly fluid character in a fairly fluid mythology, pick the elements you like best, see what concept comes out of that, and then pick the class from there.
Galahad was his son correct?
Would the Knights of the Round Table and their king, as well as Merlin, be considered mythic?
Would the Knights of the Round Table and their king, as well as Merlin, be considered mythic?
I think so, yes. Certainly I'd stat Lancelot as a mythic paladin - he bested a lot of other knights that were not evil on the field, after all. Lancelot and some other knights (Parsival, Bors, and Galahad for three) were emphatically paladins and the inspiration for the class. Many of the others would be fighters or cavaliers.
He's a Paladin, don't be silly with modern moral relativism.
OK, how about some Christian rules. Such as not having sex with someone you are not married to? Galahad is his son by Elaine.
How about some Pathfinder rules (and general rules about Paladins)? Paladins cannot or do not lie. Lancelot would regularly wear other knights tabards and use their shields, lying about his identity, to get into fights with other knights.
Murder? Yep, Lancelot would often slaughter people, intentionally and neither in self-defense or during warfare. What would be considered murder, other than acceptable (Biblicaly) killing.
While some or most of what he did was legal at the time, it was religiously wrong.
I've got the old-skool Legends and Lore in front of me right now and he is, indeed, a 20th-level paladin. Deal with it.
1) The character description is post-Elaine, but pre-menage-a-trois.
2) It says at the beginning of the Arthurian legends chapter that Mallory is the source they are working from.
Lancelot and Galahad were acknowledged to be the inspiration for the original paladin class.
That doesn't mean that the PF paladin class is the best way to "build" Lancelot. But it does suggest that would be a place to start. And if you could reproduce Lancelot faithfully as a paladin, I'm not sure why you would want to do anything different.
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IIRC Lancelot was tricked by Elaine into doing the nasty.
Is failing his save versus 'the nasty' enough to make a paladin fall?
Here we are in DM territory again.
With some DMs a paladin can't play poker for matches, because 'bluffing' is a euphemism for 'lying' so if a paladin bluffs in poker then he falls.
Lancelot must have avoided those bad DMs.
I think my own reading of the classic Lancelot legend is that it was Lancelot's love of Guinevere that was Lancelot's true failing.
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IIRC Lancelot was tricked by Elaine into doing the nasty.
Is failing his save versus 'the nasty' enough to make a paladin fall?
Here we are in DM territory again.
With some DMs a paladin can't play poker for matches, because 'bluffing' is a euphemism for 'lying' so if a paladin bluffs in poker then he falls.
Lancelot must have avoided those bad DMs.
Not really a save I don't think. A magically aided disguise roll vs perception and bluff vs sense motive, I'd think.
I wouldn't rule it that way for the average PF paladin, but Lancelot was a very Christian Knight and, at least at the time, that meant chastity. It would be included in his knightly Vows.
At the time of the original writings about Lancelot, 'chastity' meant 'not being unfaithful to your spouse'. You could have as much sex as you wanted with your spouse and you would still be chaste unless you had sex with someone else. This is why Lancelot fell: Guinevere was married to someone else, his best friend Arthur.
'Celibacy' means no sex at all. To be a paragon of (middle-ages 'Christian') virtue knights had to be chaste, not celibate.
If I were playing 1/2 Ed D&D would go with his stats in Deities & Demigods..... For Pathfinder I would make him a Mythic Fighter - because he was the best of the best....
I also recommend reading "An ill made knight".