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Oh, that said, I don't really believe Chaotics can have "codes". They can have firm moral boundaries, but they won't let a rigid code restrict how best they can meet those moral boundaries. That's what Law is all about—whether it be an internal Law or an external Law, it represents a set of standards from which you cannot deviate, even if failing to deviate means compromising your goals.
A Chaotic Good bandit who dislikes shooting unarmed villains might do so, if he thinks it's the right thing to do. Because he isn't going to compromise himself just for the sake of some nebulous rules.
A Lawful Good bandit who dislikes shooting unarmed villains most likely would not, even if she thinks it's the right thing to do. Because if you break one rule, even for a good cause, it'll all come crashing down soon enough. Rules, even internal ones, exist for a reason.
A Chaotic Good "paladin" wouldn't have a code. She'd have a very, very firm moral center.
Incidentally, I think the antipaladin is megadorky. Antipaladins are the nerds of the villain world. "Um, Demogorgon, you forgot to assign us homework!"
I'm almost surprised that paladins of other alignments aren't done by archetypes, although with the rich history that the class has I shouldn't be too surprised. I'm sure they'd be plenty of backlash from non lawful good paladin archetypes.
I'm almost surprised that paladins of other alignments aren't done by archetypes, although with the rich history that the class has I shouldn't be too surprised. I'm sure they'd be plenty of backlash from non lawful good paladin archetypes.
The Shifter is apparently a Nature-Paladin kind of class, so that's your neutral classes taken care of.
The problem with "Paladins of any alignment" is as soon as you let CG paladins exist without house rules, you will get a million Desnan Paladins with 1 level oracle dips who get Charisma to everything. If you can somehow unprint Desna's Shooting Star, I have no opposition though.
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"My Paladin of Freedom found a bunch of goblin babies. wat do"
Digester Wizard: "Adopt them and raise them with the good teachings of Ayn Rand!"
truegrognard: "ibtl"
GobboHacker: "Better to die young than live in chains."
Gruumshfan13: "Goblins are inherently enslaved to their own foolishness. Purge them from existence or risk losing your paladin powers."
Digester Wizard: "YOU'RE ALL TERRIBLE PEOPLE WHO HATE FREEDOM"
Gruumshfan13: "Digester Wizard, I hope your family catches wizard flu this winter."
Digester Wizard: "I will track you down and beat you to death with my copy of Atlas Shrugged."
GobboHacker: "Guys can we get back on-topic, I really want to argue more about killing babies."
Doodlebug Anklebiter*: "Adopt them and raise them with the good teachings of Karl Marx."
Alex Kidborts: ""
*Doodlebug Anklebiter is a universal constant across all AltPaizoscapes.
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I mean, all of those assumptions hold true just fine if you add, "Paladin of a good god".
Characters provide unique flavor. Classes don't. What "unique flavor" does the fighter, or rogue, or even wizard provide? Barring the old tendencies of, "I'm a rogue? I steal the tablecloth!", most classes don't force flavor on the players. Paladins are a rare exception, even by the standards of divine casters.
Obviously, if you like LG-only paladins, more power to you. I do, too. But I don't really see any point in arguing over it. More choice is better for both players and GMs. Run paladins the way you like.
I mean, all of those assumptions hold true just fine if you add, "Paladin of a good god".
Characters provide unique flavor. Classes don't. What "unique flavor" does the fighter, or rogue, or even wizard provide? Barring the old tendencies of, "I'm a rogue? I steal the tablecloth!", most classes don't force flavor on the players. Paladins are a rare exception, even by the standards of divine casters.
Obviously, if you like LG-only paladins, more power to you. I do, too. But I don't really see any point in arguing over it. More choice is better for both players and GMs. Run paladins the way you like.
Concerning the part I have made bold: I generally like when classes in a game suggest a theme for a character, perhaps for inspiration while leaving room for customization or unique takes on the class. For example the game d20 Modern has very generic sounding classes, like "The Tough Hero", it took me awhile to get used to such generic sounding classes in that game.
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For reference: tenants are people who rent, tenets are central pieces of faith. They're not usually the same.
One of the key tenants of Pharasma is Groetus, who plans to crash at her place sometime over the next few eons and never, ever pay rent.
Concerning the part I have made bold: I generally like when classes in a game suggest a theme for a character, perhaps for inspiration while leaving room for customization or unique takes on the class. For example the game d20 Modern has very generic sounding classes, like "The Tough Hero", it took me awhile to get used to such generic sounding classes in that game.I mean, all of those assumptions hold true just fine if you add, "Paladin of a good god".
Characters provide unique flavor. Classes don't. What "unique flavor" does the fighter, or rogue, or even wizard provide? Barring the old tendencies of, "I'm a rogue? I steal the tablecloth!", most classes don't force flavor on the players. Paladins are a rare exception, even by the standards of divine casters.
Obviously, if you like LG-only paladins, more power to you. I do, too. But I don't really see any point in arguing over it. More choice is better for both players and GMs. Run paladins the way you like.
True, but I do think there's a difference between "suggestion" and "hardset rules". I'm quite happy with the Rogue being called the Rogue, or even the Thief. Putting in rules that the rogue must rob 20% of the gold from every person they meet, on the other hand, is being pushy. That playstyle works for some games. Not D&D.
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Sorry—to be clear, I didn't mean that classes don't have any assigned flavor. My main point was that paladins' current level of assigned flavor is abnormally strict. It's also the most arbitrarily assigned flavor. Barbarians are, as you noted, fairly easy to reinterpret. Is it a murder trance? Is it a frothing rage? It's pretty simple to say one or the other.
Paladins have much stricter rules set in. They limit roleplay in a way most classes don't—clerics, at least, can serve whichever gods they choose, and cavaliers (which, I will note, are APG) have numerous different orders. Paladins are much more heavily limited.
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Fighters don't. They're generic warriors. Their flavor is the Everyman.
The rogue is the agile adventurer. The street rat that can go good or bad. We'll never know for sure.
Wizards have schools.
Paladin flavor comes from the rarity.
This is all cool, but it's also all pretty much setting design. Wizard "schools" only have roleplaying consequences in the same way a fighter chooses a weapon—they don't mandate any roleplaying outside of, "I can cast these spells". It's not like they're literal schools. Fighters being the "everyman" and rogues being the "agile adventurer" is not unlike paladins being the "divine caster knight". Again, you're just describing their mechanical abilities—not any real roleplaying prescriptions.
For reference: tenants are people who rent, tenets are central pieces of faith. They're not usually the same.One of the key tenants of Pharasma is Groetus, who plans to crash at her place sometime over the next few eons and never, ever pay rent.
Although I despise most of his following, Groetus' eventual 'crashing' upon Pharasma's perverbial 'couch', so to speak, will certainly grant my pallid lady a great moment of joy.
Before our entire annihilation as Groetus returns all to null.
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This is all cool, but it's also all pretty much setting design. Wizard "schools" only have roleplaying consequences in the same way a fighter chooses a weapon—they don't mandate any roleplaying outside of, "I can cast these spells". It's not like they're literal schools. Fighters being the "everyman" and rogues being the "agile adventurer" is not unlike paladins being the "divine caster knight". Again, you're just describing their mechanical abilities—not any real roleplaying prescriptions.Fighters don't. They're generic warriors. Their flavor is the Everyman.
The rogue is the agile adventurer. The street rat that can go good or bad. We'll never know for sure.
Wizards have schools.
Paladin flavor comes from the rarity.
Mechanical abilities are the capabilities of the character. Those have an impact on the role playing.
Role-playing and mechanics are not separate things.
Edit: divine caster Knight is the Cleric or the Warpriest. The Paladin is unique.
They're not separate things, but they're also malleable.
Going back to the barbarian example, having your barbarian's rage be frothing madness, tranquil fury, or a battle trance are all good ways of having role-playing informing your character's mechanics. None of them are the "wrong" way to play a barbarian.
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I think stepping away will be for the best, I am out numbered and am beginning to doubt there is any hope of convincing others. More, I would need to start turning to the arguments of others since I am running out of my own.It's okay man. I feel the same often. Old guys (in age or spirit) like us aren't really very welcome here.
Reposted from a thread back in January, as it's basically applicable here:
Also, you're coming across as really elitist, particularly with the whole "we were paladins before you were born, and we walked uphill, both ways, using only a discarded copy of the Monster Manual to beat off hoards of munchkins" stuff. If you're trying to convince people of your position, condescending to them isn't the strongest tactic.
Nobody has a problem with "old guys." Many of us fall into the category of "old guys,"
Just, dunno, somewhere alignment became a non-item and classes became chassis with no flavor or story value to them.
Alignment has, in my estimation, always been one of the least interesting mechanics in d20. I didn't really care about it in AD&D, I didn't really care about it in 3.X, and I don't really care about it much in PF. I deal with it because I have to. Honestly I find the subjective alignment system way more interesting, where good and evil are largely defined on perspective and, theoretically, two Paladins of differing faiths could use smite on each other.
Classes having flavor is great, but I don't like being hamstrung by it. When the class starts hampering creativity because of baked in flavor, it makes things less interesting.
In our day alignment was important. Classes were bound and married to lore and story. The new gen isn't big on it.
Yeah, how dare people want to make their own stories. Seriously, while I didn't play much AD&D, I don't remember alignment every really coming up on the regular. Out of curiosity, I asked a few of my friends who played since essentially D&Ds inception, and none of them were particularly concerned about alignment either. I've certainly dealt more with alignment in Pathfinder/3.X than I ever did before.
Best way to put it is that eventually the old need to step away and cede the world to the young. The way PF is going the next edition won't have alignment, at all, and classes won't exist. It'll just be a collection of abilities that players mix and match to make whatever they want.
Or just acknowledge that there isn't a wrong way to play the game, even if we have chaotic Paladins. But that's very self-sacrificing of you to "cede the world." Very magnanimous.
Oh, that said, I don't really believe Chaotics can have "codes". They can have firm moral boundaries, but they won't let a rigid code restrict how best they can meet those moral boundaries.
{. . .}
Their firm moral boundaries could be considered equivalent to codes, even though they might well be harder to put into words, and many Lawful people would have a hard time wrapping their heads around them.
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I've always considered my particular view of paladins to be rather cynical;
A paladin is someone who is proficient with heavy armor & martial weapons, has an aura that buffs their allies, can lay on hands, smite, and cast spells up to fourth level.
That's all a paladin is. And that's a skill set. A skill set partly bestowed on them by the deity they follow.
Nothing about that skill set strikes me as particularly inherent to order. Laying on hands to heal may be seen as inherently good but then I wouldn't exactly characterize the modern day health care industry as inherently good. But that's a political discussion that isn't for here or now. Suffice to say I can imagine various self centered, non-good uses and motivations for a healing power.
Point being, there's no legitimate reason I've ever seen or heard as to why a chaotic good god or a lawful evil one wouldn't empower one of their divine warriors to be able to do the things a paladin can do. And I've heard them all. Thematic, mechanic, philosophic. I'm just not convinced by those arguments verses the simple practicality of wanting a servant on the mortal plane that can do the things a paladin can do.
Seems like it would just be a paladin without their code (paladin without flavor maybe is what people are wanting.)
I think war priest is way to go.
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To me it's not about "making their own stories."
Simple fact... Gaming is my primary form of entertainment these days. This constant "freedom!" Craze, that I find is done at the expense of flavor actively harms my enjoyment of the medium.
It's gotten to the point that I rarely want to purchase new PF books. There are some I really do want, but others... No.
I kinda want a PF setting that is heavy on alignment and class lore. Though I doubt they'd do it. Still... I'm going to take my leave before I get more upset over the topic.
Fare thee well.
There was a number of major reasons why Planescape was my favorite setting. From the cant and lingo you can use, to have very much alignment was important to the structure of the planes, the Rule of Three, the Lady of Pain, factions and which one players might join, and so much more. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer.
There was some truly brilliant and interesting settings in the early days. With so much lore backing them up and so much to work with.
I'm sorry, can Antipaladins violate their code? I thought that was entirely unconditional.
I'm sorry, can Antipaladins violate their code? I thought that was entirely unconditional.
I think if they did the vader thing and alignment shift self-sacrificed for the greater good. safe to say that would break their code.
Seems like it would just be a paladin without their code (paladin without flavor maybe is what people are wanting.)
I think war priest is way to go.
The problem being, a warpriest doesn't have the features a paladin does. D10 hd and full bab being first on the list. And Smite too, I guess. At this point I'm kinda hoping for an unchained paladin that relaxes them from being nothing but LG, even if it means some of their other features get toned down (see unchained barbarian).
Hmm so you really just want the class features then? Would smite be generic smite anything or still just smite evil? D10 doesn't seem to huge. Full BAB is the tricky part since seems any class that has spell casting (except pally and ranger) has a mid BAB.
Hmm I think the way that paizo should do it then would to make a new class call it divine something. And have ti be like a cleric in that you choose your alignment and domain then give it a set up similar to paladin with smite (opposite alignment).
Although honestly If your building for flavor of a class I feel like prioritizing class features is not the way to do it. you should generalize like I want to play a divine character that focuses on combat but has a few spells. At least from a role playing perspective.
I suppose the ultimate way to pick and choose what you want would be to go classless. (I've seen ways of doing that.)
Sounds reasonable maybe alter spell list a bit too.
Oh I just thought of it. how about a psychic/occult archetype for paladin. not alignment specific alter spell lists and etc.
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The problem being, a warpriest doesn't have the features a paladin does. D10 hd and full bab being first on the list. And Smite too, I guess. At this point I'm kinda hoping for an unchained paladin that relaxes them from being nothing but LG, even if it means some of their other features get toned down (see unchained barbarian).Seems like it would just be a paladin without their code (paladin without flavor maybe is what people are wanting.)
I think war priest is way to go.
Be careful what you wish for. Grey Paladin sort of does this, but only relaxed their alignment requirement a mediocre amount, while toning several of their features WAY down.
What I'd like to see in Pathfinder 2.0 territory: Paladins and Inquisitors would no longer be base classes, but instead prestige classes -- after all, what religion or philosophy in its right mind would commission some random person off the street to be one of their flagship Holy Warriors or Troubleshooters operating above church laws? Use Hellknight and Hellknight Signifer, respectively, as templates, along with the Kirthfinder (and D&D 3.x Unearthed Arcana) Prestige Paladin. Each major religion or philosophy (and sometimes a minor one) gets its own take on Holy Warrior(*) or Inquisitor(*)(**), if so inclined, with its own set of Paladin/Antipaladin-related abilities (often overlapping, but also with some unique), and its own prestige class name (again often with some overlap), and its own code and/or moral center.
(*)Holy Warrior geared for entry from a non-spellcasting class, with an eye to (but not exclusive) to Cavalier; if it got its own spellcasting progression, this would come close to mimicking 4/9 spellcasting. Divine Troubleshooter/Prestige Inquisitor geared for entry from a spellcasting class, but tweak it to actually work reasonably well for a 6/9 spellcaster while not overpowering a 9/9 spellcaster -- failure to do the former is one of the downfalls of Hellknight Signifer and almost all other spellcasting prestige classes.
(**)However, I like the Inquisitor chassis -- save this for something else, including a potential remix with Warpriest to make the new warrior Cleric, and also including a way to make a type of specialty priest (and yes, I am thinking of D&D 2nd Edition Specialty Priests), while saving 9/9 divine spellcasting for a d6, 1/2 BAB divine caster with a more respectable amount of other class features.
^Be careful what you wish for. Grey Paladin sort of does this, but only relaxed their alignment requirement a mediocre amount, while toning several of their features WAY down.
What I'd like to see in Pathfinder 2.0 territory: Paladins and Inquisitors would no longer be base classes, but instead prestige classes -- after all, what religion or philosophy in its right mind would commission some random person off the street to be one of their flagship Holy Warriors or Troubleshooters operating above church laws? Use Hellknight and Hellknight Signifer, respectively, as templates, along with the Kirthfinder (and D&D 3.x Unearthed Arcana) Prestige Paladin. Each major religion or philosophy (and sometimes a minor one) gets its own take on Holy Warrior(*) or Inquisitor(*)(**), if so inclined, with its own set of Paladin/Antipaladin-related abilities (often overlapping, but also with some unique), and its own prestige class name (again often with some overlap), and its own code and/or moral center.
(*)Holy Warrior geared for entry from a non-spellcasting class, with an eye to (but not exclusive) to Cavalier; if it got its own spellcasting progression, this would come close to mimicking 4/9 spellcasting. Divine Troubleshooter/Prestige Inquisitor geared for entry from a spellcasting class, but tweak it to actually work reasonably well for a 6/9 spellcaster while not overpowering a 9/9 spellcaster -- failure to do the former is one of the downfalls of Hellknight Signifer and almost all other spellcasting prestige classes.
(**)However, I like the Inquisitor chassis -- save this for something else, including a potential remix with Warpriest to make the new warrior Cleric, and also including a way to make a type of specialty priest (and yes, I am thinking of D&D 2nd Edition Specialty Priests), while saving 9/9 divine spellcasting for a d6, 1/2 BAB divine caster with a more respectable amount of other class features.
all and all good. one thing I would say is I think you could just as easily grab a kid and raise him up to be a paladin just as easily as you could a wizard or ranger. I don't think you grab them off the street but rather train from an early age.
Oh, that said, I don't really believe Chaotics can have "codes". They can have firm moral boundaries, but they won't let a rigid code restrict how best they can meet those moral boundaries.
{. . .}Their firm moral boundaries could be considered equivalent to codes
True, but that's represented by a Moral alignment. "I will never, ever eat an innocent baby," is Good, not any sort of ethical code.
Yeah I feel like if the character has a strict code that he always obeys that screams lawful. While The chaotic guy is like hmm well that is not working for me lets go with something else.
{. . .}god no prestige classes are awful both in mechanics and in concept
Not necessarily. Some of them are awful in one or the other or even both, but that's a problem of implementation, not of the overall concept. Also, a lot of prestige classes suffer from not having any prestige in them -- they are supposed to be something you take up as part of investing in a philosophy, faith, organization, or tradition -- but somewhere along the way many (not all) of them lost it. But that's easily fixable, as shown with Hellknight and Hellknight Signifer (although they need updating to work well with newer manterial, and the Adventurer's Guide updates apparently didn't do much for this).
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First, please keep your tone to a reasonable level.
their tone is fine, when people aren't singling people out to swear shout or flame them it isn't really anyone else's place to try to control their tone. It's incredibly patronising.
I've always considered my particular view of paladins to be rather cynical;
A paladin is someone who is proficient with heavy armor & martial weapons, has an aura that buffs their allies, can lay on hands, smite, and cast spells up to fourth level.
That's all a paladin is. And that's a skill set. A skill set partly bestowed on them by the deity they follow.
Nothing about that skill set strikes me as particularly inherent to order. Laying on hands to heal may be seen as inherently good but then I wouldn't exactly characterize the modern day health care industry as inherently good. But that's a political discussion that isn't for here or now. Suffice to say I can imagine various self centered, non-good uses and motivations for a healing power.
Point being, there's no legitimate reason I've ever seen or heard as to why a chaotic good god or a lawful evil one wouldn't empower one of their divine warriors to be able to do the things a paladin can do. And I've heard them all. Thematic, mechanic, philosophic. I'm just not convinced by those arguments verses the simple practicality of wanting a servant on the mortal plane that can do the things a paladin can do.
This is pretty much exactly my opinion on the subject.
I also can't help but eye roll at the fact this has become another subject bogged down in the anyone who disagrees with me is ageist and doesn't know how great the good old days were line of reasoning. When I'm pretty sure there will be people from every generation on both sides of the argument.
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pretty much most of the prestige classes half about half the power of normal classes but it should be the other way around were prestige classes have 1.5-2.0 times the power of normal classes
Suck early on for great power later isn't great design IMO. Better to have the combat power about the same as a single-classed character with the same total level, but add on prestige. Being a paladin makes people stare and become respectful because they know that means they're in the presence of the hand of a god, that sort of thing.
Personally I was unimpressed with the 3x3 alignment system since about 1990, so yeah the hand of a god, not the hand of a LG or nearly LG god for me.
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To add to Walsh's I think people forget that the idea of paladin was created before the mechanics. The mechanics where made to make the flavor of the paladin work. not the other way around.
This is true of a lot of classes. Just look at the fighter he changes every edition the idea for him is the same but they change the mechanics to represent him.
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Alright cool. Let's release some non-LG paladin analogs then. Whatever. Seems like a nice compromise. Just don't make them silly. Antipaladin is already ahead of the paladin proper, as it gets everything from CE to LE, with a CE, any option (insinuatior is super functional in actual parties) but can be NE, and LE (Iron Tyrant). Unless there is something specifically special about Antipaladins, I don't see a reason for something similar to not exist for paladin.
Also, if you look at the context that Gray Paladin was released under, you'll find that it isn't actually meant to be a non-LG paladin. They can still be LG. They have purposely weakened their resolve to get around the whole 'I am a walking beacon of justice and righteousness, and my mere presence can be felt by all, both the innocent and the scoundrel' deal. They were released in Ultimate Intrigue because they're actually Paladin spies that infiltrate and enact justice where other paladins cannot operate without being found out. That's also why they get nondetection powers. Mostly, they work just fine in an intrigue setting since they're better at sleuthing that a paladin ever could be.
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I'm ok with that. I feel like if you wanted to house rule a CG paladin-like class too It would be fine I think it needs something special to really separate itself from the classic paladin. make it feel different. as opposed to a paladin without a code or a paladin that is chaotic. maybe some sort of vengeance powers or some such.
For the anti-paladin I was thinking about it. I feel like its alignment has shifted between CE and LE since 1st edition. My theory is they couldn't decide which it should be.