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except they weren'tI am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
Because the idea of an Honorable Holy questing knight as a character concept is one of the most recognizable and oldest story ideas dating back all the way to Legends of King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table were not JUST warriors, they were Holy Knights traveling the realm, following a code of honor, serving the church, and defending the helpless.
THAT is why Paladin is a core class, same reason Wizards and Druids and are, they are a very old and classic character archetype.
In fantasy they were.
Early super heros. I feel like super hero and "comics" go back further then people think. Kind of funny Beowolf the OG superman, king Arthur capt america before capt america? I wish I was still taking classes I could enjoy that as a research paper.
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Early super heros. I feel like super hero and "comics" go back further then people think. Kind of funny Beowolf the OG superman, king Arthur capt america before capt america? I wish I was still taking classes I could enjoy that as a research paper.
Apparently, if your fighter rips a troll's arm off so hard that it dies, you're considered overpowered.
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Early super heros. I feel like super hero and "comics" go back further then people think. Kind of funny Beowolf the OG superman, king Arthur capt america before capt america? I wish I was still taking classes I could enjoy that as a research paper.Apparently, if your fighter rips a troll's arm off so hard that it dies, you're considered overpowered.
Just because I wrestled a dragon to the ground and killed it is no reason to get upset at me I mean the character died doing it what more do you want? YES I ADDED IN PENALTIES FOR AGE why you think I died!?!
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Apparently, if your fighter rips a troll's arm off so hard that it dies, you're considered overpowered.
So THAT's why they only get two skill points per level now?
Before jumping into paladin, players may want to try a lawful good fighter or wizard. If they can handle that without any major intra-party clashes or alignment changes, then give paladin a whirl. Navigating alignment-based differences between characters is tough enough without the added incentive of losing your powers if stray too far once too often.
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only in a few most of them don't have any dealings with codes or even defending people they were basically suped up arend boys sent to find magical artifactsIn fantasy they were.except they weren'tI am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
Because the idea of an Honorable Holy questing knight as a character concept is one of the most recognizable and oldest story ideas dating back all the way to Legends of King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table were not JUST warriors, they were Holy Knights traveling the realm, following a code of honor, serving the church, and defending the helpless.
THAT is why Paladin is a core class, same reason Wizards and Druids and are, they are a very old and classic character archetype.
Lancelot is the ur-Paladin (and the first example of the fallen Paladin, depending on the source). Galahad is the prototypical Paladin, the example from which essentially every "white knight in shining armor" character is derived from, and was imbued with super human abilities due to his purity, piety, and honor.
Before jumping into paladin, players may want to try a lawful good fighter or wizard. If they can handle that without any major intra-party clashes or alignment changes, then give paladin a whirl. Navigating alignment-based differences between characters is tough enough without the added incentive of losing your powers if stray too far once too often.
In my experience it's only tough if someone makes it tough.
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only in a few most of them don't have any dealings with codes or even defending people they were basically suped up arend boys sent to find magical artifactsIn fantasy they were.except they weren'tI am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
Because the idea of an Honorable Holy questing knight as a character concept is one of the most recognizable and oldest story ideas dating back all the way to Legends of King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table were not JUST warriors, they were Holy Knights traveling the realm, following a code of honor, serving the church, and defending the helpless.
THAT is why Paladin is a core class, same reason Wizards and Druids and are, they are a very old and classic character archetype.
Lancelot is the ur-Paladin (and the first example of the fallen Paladin, depending on the source). Galahad is the prototypical Paladin, the example from which essentially every "white knight in shining armor" character is derived from, and was imbued with super human abilities due to his purity, piety, and honor.
Before jumping into paladin, players may want to try a lawful good fighter or wizard. If they can handle that without any major intra-party clashes or alignment changes, then give paladin a whirl. Navigating alignment-based differences between characters is tough enough without the added incentive of losing your powers if stray too far once too often.In my experience it's only tough if someone makes it tough.
And brave sir robin is your Order of the cockatrice cavalier! at least his minstrels are tasty.
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And brave sir robin is your Order of the cockatrice cavalier! at least his minstrels are tasty.only in a few most of them don't have any dealings with codes or even defending people they were basically suped up arend boys sent to find magical artifactsIn fantasy they were.except they weren'tI am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
Because the idea of an Honorable Holy questing knight as a character concept is one of the most recognizable and oldest story ideas dating back all the way to Legends of King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table were not JUST warriors, they were Holy Knights traveling the realm, following a code of honor, serving the church, and defending the helpless.
THAT is why Paladin is a core class, same reason Wizards and Druids and are, they are a very old and classic character archetype.
Lancelot is the ur-Paladin (and the first example of the fallen Paladin, depending on the source). Galahad is the prototypical Paladin, the example from which essentially every "white knight in shining armor" character is derived from, and was imbued with super human abilities due to his purity, piety, and honor.
Before jumping into paladin, players may want to try a lawful good fighter or wizard. If they can handle that without any major intra-party clashes or alignment changes, then give paladin a whirl. Navigating alignment-based differences between characters is tough enough without the added incentive of losing your powers if stray too far once too often.In my experience it's only tough if someone makes it tough.
That actually works pretty well... Now I want to know what Monty Python's Lancelot would be, what with the killing everyone in sight.
Hasty... far too hasty.
At least he felt terribly awkward about it afterwards.
except they weren'tI am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
Because the idea of an Honorable Holy questing knight as a character concept is one of the most recognizable and oldest story ideas dating back all the way to Legends of King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table were not JUST warriors, they were Holy Knights traveling the realm, following a code of honor, serving the church, and defending the helpless.
THAT is why Paladin is a core class, same reason Wizards and Druids and are, they are a very old and classic character archetype.
Paladins ARE an old meme... In D&D they go back AT LEAST to AD&D 1st ed, if not to the Original BECMI boxes... and the character type goes back to Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which itself was a direct reference to the Matter of France, where the name 'paladin' comes from in the first place. not that the Courtly Knight righting wrongs and defender of the widow and orphan as well as of Damsels in Distress does not appear abundantly in the stories of the Matter of Britain, so where is the paladin a new theme?
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I feel that one of the reasons that threads like this keep coming up is that not enough people have read the powder keg of justice
And now for responding to particularily egregious posts as I find them without suitable answers
So a paladin chooses a code, but for whatever reason each and every single paladin in history has had the same exact values and/or came to the same exact code.(with variants for deity specific code but even those are the same within that subcategory.) Yeah not buying it.
in pathfinder each god (that can have paladins or antipaladins, so basically all of them except the CG and LE gods) has their own code
Before jumping into paladin, players may want to try a lawful good fighter or wizard. If they can handle that without any major intra-party clashes or alignment changes, then give paladin a whirl. Navigating alignment-based differences between characters is tough enough without the added incentive of losing your powers if stray too far once too often.
And that's why Paladin should be a prestige class. (Same deal for Inquisitor, which gets to go above the normal rules of their church to protect it.)
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In ancient Rome, the emperor's palace was located on the Palatine Hill, known as "Palatium" in Latin. Since the site was the seat of imperial power, the word palatium came to mean "imperial" and later "imperial official." Different forms of the word passed through Latin, Italian, and French, picking up various meanings along the way, until eventually some of those forms made their way into English. "Paladin" is one of the etymological heirs of "palatium"; another descendant is the word palace.
see also
Word Origin and History for paladin. n. 1590s, "one of the 12 knights in attendance on Charlemagne," from Middle French paladin "a warrior" (16c.), from Italian paladino, from Latin palatinus "palace official;" noun use of palatinus "of the palace"
So it depends on if you want to use specifically paladin or one of its previous forms.
Looks like Lady J was talking about the Palatium origin. Which is what I thought the origin was as it happens, just didn't care to argue with the people saying the origin was French.
Just like I don't think Gawain one of the knights of the round table was a Paladin, not consistently anyway. Some arguments just aren't worth having.
I just get annoyed (maybe to strong of a word) when I see people arguing over easily referenced facts So I like to clear it up when I can. Helps everyone out.
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Just like I don't think Gawain one of the knights of the round table was a Paladin, not consistently anyway. Some arguments just aren't worth having.
Ehhhhhhhhh...kinda sorta. He's Paladin-ish. He was one of the greatest knights, a protector of the poor, champion of women, could heal wounds and illness, and sometimes had superhuman abilities. If he isn't a Paladin, he's at least a LG cavalier.
He also had the chivalric equivalent of an affair with his hosts wife after about 3 days (I read it like 2 years ago so my memory is foggy) whilst also bonding with her husband during the evenings and taking his gifts.
I wouldn't call that paragon of honourable lawful good behaviour.
Yeah he healed people, that doesn't mean he must automatically fit neatly into a class in pathfinder that does the same. He doesn't.
EDIT: see I said I didn't want to have this argument, now I've bee sucked into a ridiculous subjective argument again. I hate Paladin threads why do I come here.
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He also had the chivalric equivalent of an affair with his hosts wife after about 3 days (I read it like 2 years ago so my memory is foggy) whilst also bonding with her husband during the evenings and taking his gifts.
I wouldn't call that paragon of honourable lawful good behaviour.
Yeah he healed people, that doesn't mean he must automatically fit neatly into a class in pathfinder that does the same. He doesn't.
EDIT: see I said I didn't want to have this argument, now I've bee sucked into a ridiculous subjective argument again. I hate Paladin threads why do I come here.
Close, but not exactly. He'd made an agreement with his host that he (the host) would give Gawain whatever he caught while hunting if Gawain would give him anything he should happen to receive while the host was away. The host's wife started pursuing Gawain forcefully, Gawain accented to a kiss so as not to offend her. When the host came back Gawain gave him a kiss. The second day it was the same thing, only with two kisses. The third day it was three kisses, but the wife also offered him a girdle that would protect him against all harm (he was scheduled to get his head chopped off the next day by the Green Knight). Gawain gave his host the three kisses, but did not mention the girdle, being afraid of his fate. When he went to face the Green Knight, the Knight took two false swings, the third time he cut Gawain's neck shallowly. The Knight revealed that he had been the host all along, and that the cut was for keeping the girdle. Gawain, terribly embarrassed, apologizes, the Green Knight says that it was cool, that Gawain still was braver than all other knights, and Gawain kept the girdle as a reminder of his broken word and to never fail in his oaths again.
And there's nothing wrong with debating subjective issues, so long as it's all in good spirits.
Yeah that was it, doesn't exactly sound like a Paladin to me.
There's nothing to debate - you either think that lying to your host and withholding some stuff that was given as a gift in an at best moral grey area because you're scared of getting in trouble is Paladin behavior, then fine. I don't.
I don't think him healing people changes any of the above.
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You started out with:
Some DMs won't allow any of the above. Using it as a excuse to make the Paladin fall.
That's a jerkass GM. I should have taken it more point by point, and that was my mistake.
In your story, however, that guy was playing a Jerkass Paladin Who Kills Everyone Else's Fun, by deciding in the middle of everything to drop the plan he previously agreed to. That's a ton of fail on his part, and an example of why people get really torqued with paladins.
I like playing a paladin. I have done it more than once. It needs a GM who will not make a point of finding all sorts of ways to push you to fall, or declare you fall if you sneeze and don't apologize for sneezing on people immediately (which I have heard of), and a player (which I have been) who needs to think about what their character will do in many situations, as well as have regrets for their failures and less than charitable thoughts and seek to make amends.
(all sorts of ways to make you fall, I note, included one I witnessed who had a BBEG make a door out of children turned to stone, then tied together and covered with an illusion to make a door, which was put in a doorway, and when no one tried to disbelieve and they broke down the door, breaking the statue-forms of the children, declared it an 'evil act' and stripped the paladin's powers. That is a jerkass GM.)
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That's why I said Paladin-ish. Gawain isn't the perfect Paladin (that would be Sir Galahad), but much of his character is Paladin-like. And, it should be noted, that after breaking his word he sought penance and received absolution from both the Green Knight and King Arthur, which is about as close as you get to an atonement spell in Arthurian legend.
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I dislike having paladins for every alignment. That dilutes the concept of a holy warrior who's a shining beacon of virtue to fighter guy with alignment-based abilities. "I'm a paladin." "Me too!" "Same over here!" It's lame.
You never hear people complaining that they can't be a lawful barbarian...
That's why I said Paladin-ish. Gawain isn't the perfect Paladin (that would be Sir Galahad), but much of his character is Paladin-like. And, it should be noted, that after breaking his word he sought penance and received absolution from both the Green Knight and King Arthur, which is about as close as you get to an atonement spell in Arthurian legend.
As I recall Arthur and the other knights actually thought he was making a fuss over nothing, which is both not atonement but also, not very Paladinlike of them.
So, I'm just going to give a little bit of my background as a PF/3.5 player to make a comparison, here.
In my very first game, I had vaguely wanted to play a paladin. Didn't end up doing so, since I was joining halfway through the campaign and there already was one. I was very quickly happy with that choice. I was told right from the start "play a good-aligned character, this is a heroic campaign more or less, a lot of the plot hooks come down to wanting to help people", and I did.
This was a very misleading explanation. The most common alignment in the party was Chaotic "Neutral", followed by Apathetic Murderhobo. One player in particular frequently alternated between ranting about how "I can't do anything fun, the stupid paladin's here" and "<paladin> should totally fall, he should have fallen long ago, look at everything he lets me get away with." The GM didn't want either player to be restricted, and pretty much just tried to back out of the arguments. For his own part, the paladin's player sunk into apathy and shyness regarding the game, and more or less entirely dropped out of RPing. He showed up for sessions, usually, and zoned out until prompting. "Oh, my turn? Sure. How do I attack, again?" It was depressing, the GM was a newbie, PvP wasn't allowed, and most of us were new as well. No one had any clue how to fix the problem, or in some cases, that there even was a problem.
So, in my second game... I still wanted to play a paladin. That hope hadn't been entirely killed. I asked the whole group if it was okay. I nervously read everybody's PC bios for signs they'd act similarly. I told myself, if that starts to happen again, I'd have my PC run into monsters recklessly until they could at least go out in a blaze of glory. I picked the Redeemer archetype solely to avoid player conflicts. I was about as prepared as I could be to try to survive any mayhem.
There were a couple disagreements. A few times one player wanted to do something weird and evil out of the blue, and multiple people disagreed. Every one of those, despite three players/PCs and the GM siding against them each time, was framed as "I don't get to do anything fun because of the paladin". I was already trying to figure out what to reroll as when the GM brought up wishing they would stick with it being a good-aligned campaign. Things got talked out, everything was fine.
I've played three more paladins since, with a lot of different attitudes toward their fellow PCs doing not so LG things, in some pretty mixed parties. Not a single complaint about any of them, and I've asked people. Obviously for a more morally sketchy campaign, I'd play something else.
tl;dr if a paladin being in the party restricts your fun, it's one of three things.
- obviously the wrong game for them to try to play a paladin.
- one or both players and/or the GM have... a poor understanding of LG. If this is the case, I'd advise two things: one, check with the paladin player if they *actually* are going to smite your PC over a night on the town and it's not just you judging by what happened last game. Two, check with the GM, preferably first in private then in front of the group so the paladin player knows it, "hey you won't have the paladin fall for not stopping me from doing this stuff, right?" Advocate how not being crazy strict toward the paladin helps everyone else.
- if it's none of those, gonna be pretty likely that it's not the paladin, it's you. Same way they shouldn't play LG in a morally gray game, don't play amoral CN scofflaws in a heroic game. Or if you do either of those, have a plan to not mess with other players.
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That actually works pretty well... Now I want to know what Monty Python's Lancelot would be, what with the killing everyone in sight.Lancelot is the ur-Paladin (and the first example of the fallen Paladin, depending on the source). Galahad is the prototypical Paladin, the example from which essentially every "white knight in shining armor" character is derived from, and was imbued with super human abilities due to his purity, piety, and honor.And brave sir robin is your Order of the cockatrice cavalier! at least his minstrels are tasty.
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OK, yes, "our" Paladin archetype was mostly shaped by the later French romantics who were uninterested in gritty reality, and considering the the gritty reality France had endured, only a rather callous person could fault them on it.
******** Sidetrack Alert **********
Gawain never fit terribly well in the French reimagining of Camalot, because he was still "Living Myth" to the Celtic Culture, and not that separated from surviving Gaul/Gael myth, and was tied to earlier myth much tighter than any version of Arthur was. Yes, Lancelot was a wholly French creation, and owes his existance to Charlemagne and Roland than to anything of Brittain, and it was quite deliberate that the superior knight was undeniably French.
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The whole point of the Paladin concept is that it is possible to maintain purity of spirit and purpose in this impure/gritty world. This really resonates with a lot of people. Not so much with others. I believe that the concept of the Paladin, as defined, belongs in the game, and has since the days of the little brown booklets. I can certainly imagine other Paragon concepts, but just stripping off the Paladins Codes of Purity is just unimaginative, and rather weak.
Has anyone pointed out that, with the way Pathfinder deals with NPCs, EVERY character class is effectively a Paragon.
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I didn't partake in a single campaign where I or someone else played a paladin and that disrupted the game in anyway. I also love the paladin as a class and wouldn't want to see it go or to be relegated to a prestige class.
This out of the way, I do understand why some people don't like the alignment restriction and have been known to allow for Paladin variants with other alignments. I also don't think that the holy warrior archetype must be restricted to the paladin class and have played other holy warriors using another class chassis.
In short: There are so many options in this game that noone should feel the need for something to be removed just because they don't like it for whatever reason.
So to answer the OP's questions in the threat title.
a) because enough players like it that way.
b) Not in my experience.
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That's why I said Paladin-ish. Gawain isn't the perfect Paladin (that would be Sir Galahad), but much of his character is Paladin-like. And, it should be noted, that after breaking his word he sought penance and received absolution from both the Green Knight and King Arthur, which is about as close as you get to an atonement spell in Arthurian legend.As I recall Arthur and the other knights actually thought he was making a fuss over nothing, which is both not atonement but also, not very Paladinlike of them.
Well, he prescribes that Gawain should wear the belt (or a green stole in some tellings) as a reminder to keep his word, so YMMV.
I've heard the Shifter described as a "Nature Paladin" by a number of Paizo folks who'd know, so I wonder if we can expect regular threads about "Why does the shifter need to be TN" then.
yes people do there was an entire thread on it not to long ago until a mod closed it downYou never hear people complaining that they can't be a lawful barbarian...Yes, you do.Okay, rarely hear people complaining that they can't be lawful barbarians.
Either way, it is far less common than the matter at hand.
Compared to the amount of threads complaining about paladin's fixed alignment?
I've heard the Shifter described as a "Nature Paladin" by a number of Paizo folks who'd know, so I wonder if we can expect regular threads about "Why does the shifter need to be TN" then.
Second look, I see a different thing, you just need to look past the snark.
My respect for Paizo rises a notch. (We hope this survives the actual published product.) Note that this Druid(ish) "Nature Paladin" appears to be done absolutely right. He is not just a standard Paladin with the serial numbers filed off. He does not have the Paladin Panoply, because that would be inappropriate for his idiom. He is True Nuetral because that IS the correct allignment for a Paragon Defender of Nature's Balance. He is not a walking billboard for the Green Faith, because the Green Faith is not really wanting to draw masses of converts. Dense Population = Bad don'cha know, and really, if you don't already get it, we don't want you. A Green Faith Crusade would not look anything like an Iomedie one. I rather expect you really wouldn't even see anything definite until it was too late.
I've heard the Shifter described as a "Nature Paladin" by a number of Paizo folks who'd know, so I wonder if we can expect regular threads about "Why does the shifter need to be TN" then.Second look, I see a different thing, you just need to look past the snark.
My respect for Paizo rises a notch. (We hope this survives the actual published product.) Note that this Druid(ish) "Nature Paladin" appears to be done absolutely right. He is not just a standard Paladin with the serial numbers filed off. He does not have the Paladin Panoply, because that would be inappropriate for his idiom. He is True Nuetral because that IS the correct allignment for a Paragon Defender of Nature's Balance. He is not a walking billboard for the Green Faith, because the Green Faith is not really wanting to draw masses of converts. Dense Population = Bad don'cha know, and really, if you don't already get it, we don't want you. A Green Faith Crusade would not look anything like an Iomedie one. I rather expect you really wouldn't even see anything definite until it was too late.
Daw, I don't think that they have confirmed one way or the other (unless they did it at Gencon) whether the shifter was alignment-lock or not. Likely it isn't because can't remember the last time Paizo released a class that was, though I think it was only in the Core Rulebook. Within one step of your deity? Yes. Archetypes and Prestige Classes? Ditto. An actual base class? I don't think so.
I thought I heard somewhere that Shifters basically were Druid-locked aka any neutral. I can't provide a source on that, just something I could have sworn reading somewhere.Daw, I don't think that they have confirmed one way or the other (unless they did it at Gencon) whether the shifter was alignment-lock or not. Likely it isn't because can't remember the last time Paizo released a class that was. Within one step of your deity? Yes. Archetypes and Prestige Classes? Ditto. An actual base class? I don't think so.I've heard the Shifter described as a "Nature Paladin" by a number of Paizo folks who'd know, so I wonder if we can expect regular threads about "Why does the shifter need to be TN" then.Second look, I see a different thing, you just need to look past the snark.
My respect for Paizo rises a notch. (We hope this survives the actual published product.) Note that this Druid(ish) "Nature Paladin" appears to be done absolutely right. He is not just a standard Paladin with the serial numbers filed off. He does not have the Paladin Panoply, because that would be inappropriate for his idiom. He is True Nuetral because that IS the correct allignment for a Paragon Defender of Nature's Balance. He is not a walking billboard for the Green Faith, because the Green Faith is not really wanting to draw masses of converts. Dense Population = Bad don'cha know, and really, if you don't already get it, we don't want you. A Green Faith Crusade would not look anything like an Iomedie one. I rather expect you really wouldn't even see anything definite until it was too late.
All I heard was that they are to druids what paladins are to clerics, which doesn't necessarily mean anything alignment wise (i.e. clerics can be all alignments but paladins are LG only [for the most part], for all we know shifters could be less restricted than druids)
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I am sure this is not new ground so am happy to be linked elsewhere on this but :
I can't get my head around why (other than for 3.5 legacy reasons) the Paladin is a core class.
The Code of Conduct makes things a real challenge for the player, the GM and the rest of the group. Things can so easily devolve into arguments and debates over whether they should or shouldn't do things
You can get players annoyed because the Paladin won't let them do certain things or sticking up for the Paladin when he appears to break his code ("just because he is Lawful Good it doesn't mean he is stupid").
The reverse can happen where the Paladin can be annoyed with the group constantly testing his limits.
Also there can be GMs interpreting the Paladin's actions in a negative light causing everyone to disagree
It all seems like a bit of a nightmare that requires a really mature group to deal with.
Indeed the player shoudl sit down with the party and the DM and briefly discuss the choice. But in no game I have ever run in the last 40 years has the paladin been a problem. "CN" PCs are the most common problem, not Paladins.
"Wont let them do certain things"? Generally i want mostly Good aligned partys are that is the most heroic game. Why do the other players want to do evil things?
Give every Paladin a free slotless Phylactery of Faithfulness and you will never have a issue of a Paladin doing wrong things or failing.
Do not set Paladin traps, of course.