In short..
Your character when played properly will look like a paladin being played properly. They do not have to look like the self rightous pompous murderhobos that have unfortunately become synonymous with paladin.
You could argue that "violate" is used because it connotes a serious transgression. I don't think the intention is for a Paladin to be faced with falling any time they are confronted with "Can you come to my Party on Friday?" or similar social situations where white lies are often called for in order to avoid unnecessarily hurting people's feelings.
Alternatively, it's possible to say a lot of things that aren't *strictly* lies. With practice you can get pretty good about saying whatever you want without saying anything strictly untrue (I'm reminded of playing a Seraph in In Nomine, where you'd be physically harmed any time you said something you knew to be untrue.)
Not 'grossly violates', just violates. So even the most trivial of deceptions will cause you to instantly lose all class featuresYou can deceive without lying.
Hence saying it's much easier for the Paladin to fall than the Warpriest.Granted. Still, the only hard coded ones are lying and poison (and one of those is a terrible option anyway)
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So first off, I would not worry too much about "not being a paladin" because it sounds like you may have an overly narrow idea of what a paladin is like. For example:
Alternatively how someone who does meet many of the standards of a paladin on the big things - brave, generous, compassionate and all the rest but has a vice or two - maybe he is a glutton or drinks too much, or flirts with every woman he meets or is very vain about his looks or is a compulsive gambler - some clearly defined flaw that stops him being Mr Perfect.
There is absolutely nothing that prevents a paladin from having a vice. Our party paladin drinks, smokes, gambles, and patronizes prostitutes. He doesn't do anything evil or dishonourable as a result, so it's not an issue. He considers these indulgences important to keeping up his morale - a form of "charity for the self."
Instead, let's focus on:
Either that or I just need help finding a way to play Lawful Good without turning into Lawful Nice/Lawful Goody Two-Shoes.
It seems like you're on the right track with being slightly more flexible with the finer points of honesty and honour in favour of achieving righteous goals. In particular, given that you've got a chaotic-leaning party it may be useful for you to play on the LG/NG border.
Ideas along that line:
Law is an important tool for building a Good society but ultimately it is a tool rather than being a good in itself.
Mortals are fallible. While it's important to aspire to high standards, having overly high expectations can push people away from the path of righteousness.
While you are called to encourage and advise others, you are ultimately only responsible for your own behavior. You may object to evil or grossly unlawful behavior from your associates (consider negotiating OOC with your fellow players about where boundaries are drawn) but you certainly don't need to act as the party's morality police.
On the other hand as I think has been mentioned above, Lawful Good really does not have to mean Lawful Nice, especially for more militant deities like Iomedae or Torag. Feel free to recommend or carry out harsh sentences, including death, for those you judge to be a real danger to goodly civilization.
I think the difference may be reflected more in the stats. A paladin is charisma based, so is more of a talker. The warpriest is wisdom based, so is more of a listener.
This is also a good thing to point out.
I played a LG Inquisitor a while back who aspired to be a paladin but had been called to serve in a different capacity. He had serious confidence issues (partly but not entirely related to not being a Real Paladin) and despite being a fairly skilled diplomat felt more comfortable as an advisor/mediator/facilitator than a traditional "face." Never thought of himself as a leader.
As we had a chaotic-leaning party I also played him emphasizing Good over Law, though he was very orderly in his personal life and always made sure the party's paperwork was properly filled out.
He's a warpriest in not a paladin what I did when playing LG cleric of Erastil: Law is my gods law as I interpret it. Human laws should be upheld but they come second to what I think is right.
Lying though... I didn't see as much of an option other than in the case where we were in imminent danger. Even then the PC twisted his words like a pro. Outright lying even if it's to get to a slave ring doesn't seem to Iomedaeish to me.
#notallpaladins ?
I don't see the code of a Iomedae warpriest (or cleric, for that matter) as any less stringent than an Iomedae paladin.
I think the important question is, if Iomedae is served by clerics, paladins, warpriests, and inquisitors, what religious function is each intended to serve within the clergy?
Even if a commoner wouldn't know the difference, the other members of the clergy would know the difference, and, as lawful a religion as it is, each of the four classes would have a specific role and specific tasks within the faith of Iomedae.
Just like, in medieval Christianity, monks, friars, and priests served different roles.
I'm trying to find ways to make him differentiate himself enough from a paladin to not fall under the banner of a LG Paladin, but still uphold that he is following what is considered the goddess of Paladin's.
Don't run around yelling "Smite Evil".
Done.
Seriously, Paladin is a class, not a character archetype.
cleric of Sarenrae (past party) decides to best way to convert people is set them on fire...
Because nothing says "redemptive powers of compassion and patience, [extended] to all who might be capable of good" like setting people on fire... wait, what? That's evil behaviour through and through and should have resulted in an ex-cleric very quickly.
LG goes a long way to holding audiences with people in legitimate positions of power
How do they know your alignment? Sure, there are spells to do that, but those aren't cantrips...
Also, Warpriest is not exactly made to be party face with MADness, 2 skills/level and Charisma as the prime dump stat.
The cleric deal was mostly due to a combination of a newish GM running a combat heavy adventure path who literally decided to let us slide because he knew most of the dungeons had evil monsters, so it was a snowball effect from the get go.
And I simply mentioned LG because it gave the DM an easy way to set up audiences rather than having the party sneaking around all the time.
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I don't see the code of a Iomedae warpriest (or cleric, for that matter) as any less stringent than an Iomedae paladin.
I think the important question is, if Iomedae is served by clerics, paladins, warpriests, and inquisitors, what religious function is each intended to serve within the clergy?
Even if a commoner wouldn't know the difference, the other members of the clergy would know the difference, and, as lawful a religion as it is, each of the four classes would have a specific role and specific tasks within the faith of Iomedae.
Just like, in medieval Christianity, monks, friars, and priests served different roles.
That's an interesting idea, but would the different roles in the church necessarily line up perfectly with the mechanical classes?
A cardinal and a crusader cleric have very different skill sets. Conversely, a tactical leader inquisitor with the chivalry inquisition would look very much like a divine commander warpriest, especially if the warpriest has a higher Int and the human 'skilled' trait. A church that wants to make the best use of its people will give the two clerics different tasks from each other, and the inquisitor and the warpriest similar tasks to each other (even though they can tell for example that one casts differently than the other).
What I could see is differentiating the priests based on holy vows taken, which correlates well with class (paladins, inquisitors, and clerics/warpriests having three different 'fall' conditions). You could then include 'Orders' which are differentiated primarily by tasks performed and which may or may not be class-specific.
On the other hand, some players such as myself like the idea of being able to take stricter vows than required by your class, which would potentially mess with the vow-based system.
You could argue that "violate" is used because it connotes a serious transgression. I don't think the intention is for a Paladin to be faced with falling any time they are confronted with "Can you come to my Party on Friday?" or similar social situations where white lies are often called for in order to avoid unnecessarily hurting people's feelings.
I disagree. It seems silly, nah I'll go further and admit it IS silly, but using white lies like that would be, if I were adjudicating, dishonorable. People would expect better of their paladin friends that took an oath to never lie. Sure, they might get their feelings hurt, but if they didn't want to risk that they were probably asking the wrong friend in the first place.
I'd probably send a warning from their deity instead of going straight to knocking the blue out of them, though. Because, again, it is a silly reason to fall. Unless I was bored and knew someone on hand had already prepared atonement.
I am admittedly very strict about this topic. I would even say using that "lying without actually lying" is against the paladin code, at least if I was playing one. I'd rather just keep my mouth shut instead.