If you were a new Paladin or Cleric of good in Golarion how would you differentiate between the two, if at all? Aside from the obvious alignment differences.
I'd imagine there would be some bias like "who cares, kill em" from the 'it's evil let's kill it' types in an adventuring party. But I'd like to hear what you guys n gals think.
Paladin Hellknights are actually possible. They have an especially easy time with the test, where they must defeat a devil in single combat.
But how would you differentiate between the two? If you are a Paladin or Cleric of good and you're fresh out of training/church school/etc. We as players might know various differences but the new characters wouldn't have access to that information.
That's why I mentioned "aside from the alignment difference".
Personally I'm leaning towards newbie clerics and paladins thinking there isn't much of a difference given the names and appearances. Once they meet one then perhaps there is an opportunity for a differing opinion.
Apologies if I didn't word this correctly
For some paladins, I would say they look at hellknights with dismay and a bit of pity. They got the message about the need for order, but misheard to think the need for order was above the call of Good.
Antipaladins are a direct mockery, and should be dealt with immediately. Direct physical confrontation is a last resort, but thrusting their plans and whittling away their network is okay.
awesome I like it. So you think that Paladins may have some precursory information on Hellknights then and see them in kind of the same light but wrong trajectory?
Well, most Hellknights are just dudes in weirdscary armor, antipals are fueled by evil divine stuff and have the aura to prove it (...most of them).
Antipaladins should be an easy priority for your average lawful stupid "detect evil => smite evil" paladin.
Beyond that, it becomes a matter of what the character knows or is aware of. Hellknights especially are easy to misunderstand.
People in Mendev might not like the Godclaw, but they're on the same side.
Shoantis are unlikely to react nicely to any Hellknight, given their experience.
A lot of people probably see Hellknights as tools of Cheliax.
Others will welcome the champions of "Order above all" that they are.
Even in the very modern Golarion, concrete, accurate information is probably not commonplace.
On the other hand, noone likes an antipaladin. But they probably don't advertise themselves as much, so you'd have to realize you're facing one in the first place.
And if they do make it obvious, then good characters aren't likely to hesitate much, depending on context.
Not sure why you're singling out clerics and paladins, or not including random martials in heavy armor in the equation, btw.
Easy to mistake that cockatrice cavalier trying to look cool and edgy with a bad guy, after all. And he's as likely to be evil as any hellknight, if not more ...
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Hellknights are a group of private mercenary companies with varying degrees of independence from the Chelish government - some work with House Thrune (Chain, Scourge, Gate) to maintain order or further their own goals, some work for House Thrune (Rack, Pyre) to help Thrune stay in control on Cheliax, and some have almost nothing to do with the House Thrune (Nail, Godclaw).
Pretty much anyone whose lawful can join the Hellknight Orders; as noted above, a number of the Orders (Godclaw, Scourge, Nail, and even Chain) count paladins in their ranks. They're rare, but paladins are rare to begin with.
The classic chaotic evil anti-paladins, on the other hand, are basically religious fanatic terrorists who actually want to see the world burn. (Aside: Lawful evil tyrant anti-paladins could easily exist in the Hellknights, but they're an archetype of an already rare class, and so should be about as common as hen's teeth.)
It's kind of like comparing Blackwater* to ISIS. The former group may be a bunch of a$&~%&%s, but the latter group is the enemy of humanity at large.
* I am aware that comparing Hellknights to Blackwater is probably being unfair to the Hellknights =P
Not sure why you're singling out clerics and paladins, ...
Thank you for your reply and good question. It was specific on purpose. In the game I'm about to run many of the religious types are new to Pathfinder and they will likely be asking questions. I know what I think but I wanted some other opinions too. Just like in the real world I figure few people are all going to agree 100% so I wanted to present them with alternative opinions to help broaden the RP experience. And the Hellknight they will eventually run into (non combat) is going to help explore that.
Going by "Path of the Hellknight"...
Most Hellknights are lawful neutral. That's not a common exception, it's the norm (though individual orders vary). Any paladin should know not to waste a Smite on them.
In fact, especially because of the misleading name, I would expect paladins to be informed about Hellknights being more often neutral than evil (and as often good as evil). That their name used to be a derogatory moniker that they chose to own instead is probably more commonly known amongst paladins than any other class. And it's definitely known amongst all those paladins that are also Hellknights.
Hellknights as a whole represent order without mercy. Individuals or specific orders can be better or worse, but the only consistent issue paladins have with them is that Hellknights tend to see Law and Order as an end to itself - not as the best means to universal happiness as a paladin strives for. They aren't entirely wrong, they just mixed up their priorities.
The Hellknight is the dude who loves order and greater organization like you, but is misguided in its application, some more than others.
The antipaladin is an @$$#*^% who needs to be smote.
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In fact, especially because of the misleading name, I would expect paladins to be informed about Hellknights being more often neutral than evil (and as often good as evil).
Most orders tend towards evil as portrayed. Hellknights of the Torrent are the only order that's really LG, to my knowledge, and they're pretty niche.
Hellknights will enforce laws without mercy, though to themselves a bit more than towards others. That doesn't mean they won't occasionally break laws, it means that they'll undergo creepy rituals of self-harm after they do so, such as burning themselves, drowning themselves, crushing their own bones, carving weird sigilia in their flesh... depending on the order.
It tends to be that higher tier Hellknights are evil, because being evil can give you an extra edge when it comes to climbing the power ladder. As a whole though, the grunts are rarely non-neutral.
As I said, I was going with the info from Path of the Hellknight.
Order of the Chain: Led by someone Lawful Neutral, two lawful neutral members of note, the one evil NPC of note isn't a member but someone in "protective custody".
Order of the Gate: Yeah, these are primarily evil. Evil leader, significant evil member. Also one significant lawful neutral member (and two permanently summoned devils).
Order of the Godclaw: Neutral leader, one significant evil member, one significant paladin member.
Order of the Nail: Lawful Evil leader, two neutral and one good significant members.
Order of the Pyre: Lawful Neutral leader, significant members are lawful neutral, lawful good and true neutral.
Order of the Rack: Lawful Neutral leader, one lawful neutral and two lawful evil significant members.
Order of the Scourge: Lawful Neutral leader, one lawful evil and two lawful good significant members.
Lesser Order leaders:
The Coil: Neutral Evil,
The Crux: Lawful Evil,
The Glyph: Lawful Evil,
The Pike: Lawful Good,
The Scar: Lawful Neutral,
The Torrent: Lawful Good,
The Wall: Lawful Neutral.
So, just counting the alignments of mentioned members from Path of the Hellknight:
Neutral: 5 main order leaders, 2 lesser order leaders, other 8 regular members (1 of which is true neutral), 15 in total.
Evil: 2 main order leaders, 3 lesser order leaders (1 of which is neutral evil), 5 other regular members, 10 in total.
Good: No main order leaders, 2 lesser order leaders, 5 regular members. 7 in total.
Okay, they're not quite as often good as evil, but good is still pretty common, and neutral is easily the most common group.
Correct, but the cleric's aura is also dependent on the god, not the cleric.
So a lawful neutral cleric of Asmodeus pings as lawful evil, while a chaotic evil cleric of Calistria pings as chaotic neutral (and weakly on the evil scale if strong enough).
Auras are usually a better measure of whether someone is dangerous rather than whether they should be fought immediately.
Detecting strong evil is a huge red flag, but not necessarily a call to arms.
Deuxhero may also be referring to some optional rule that lets you tell Aura of Evil apart from just plain Aura, which is interesting.
Assuming the antipaladin has a archetype that lets him be lawful evil...There is actually an archetype for that! The Tyrant Antipaladin is Lawful Evil. So an Antipaladin could actually become a Hellknight, surprisingly. I really want to play in a Hellknight game where I start out as a Tyrant Antipaladin now.
The Insinuator also can be LE.
Paladins will obviously view Antipaladins as an evil in a class of its own. In that sense, they will always trump the Hellknights as an existential threat.
Where Hellknights are concerned, whatever we might say about them on a meta level, and whatever qualifiers we might raise about their membership in terms of alignment, the fact of the matter is that they don't recognize mercy, mete out punishment without recourse, are uninterested in goodliness, and are in fact unconcerned with morality. Perhaps more to the point, Hellknights see the study of Hell--to include its methods, tactics, and atrocities--as somehow desirable, with one order even going so far as to strike bargains with fiends.
Given all this, while conflict between orders of Paladins and orders of Hellknights may be rare (there being more immediate evils to deal with), any Paladin would feel justified to think of Hellknights as an inevitable source of evil and/or tyranny. I imagine that without the various existential threats out there (the Whispering Tyrant, the Worldwound, etc.), we probably would have seen a crusade waged by a union of Paladins against Hellknights.
Hellknight are focused on LAW above all. They may be without mercy, but they also rarely act out of spite. They also for the most part do not punish the innocent, or do things for personal gain. From what I have read most hellknights are lawful neutral. There are a decent number who are evil, but not all are. Even those that are evil tend to be more focused on law than evil.
A Hellknight sees things in a very black and white manner. The law is the law and is to be obeyed period. The idea that a hellknight is without morality is not accurate. They will respect the rights of others as spelled out by the law. They don’t make exceptions or bend things to be nice they follow the letter of the law. If the law says stealing is wrong they will prevent someone from stealing and punish those who do so.
Anitpaladins on the other hand are all about themselves. They are required by their code to put their own interests before all else. They can actually become an ex-antipaladin for not doing so.
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At the risk of sounding pedantic or rude (and I don't mean to be!), words mean things... and the argument isn't that Hellknights are "without morality," but that the text (in this case, the Inner Sea World Guide, for example) is that they are "unconcerned with morality."
So when you say that Hellknights "respect the rights of others," that matters, because personal rights go hand in hand with pursuing, and being afforded, justice. We hope that laws are just, but there are no guarantees of that. More to the point, most Hellknights don't appear to care either way. The general picture presented it that they're not concerned with whether or not a law is good or just, merely that adhering to it ensures order. They're not concerned with an individual's rights, or even whether a given person has any rights at all under the standing law.
As "right" and "wrong" don't enter a Hellknight's calculus in the conventional modern sense, the issue with stealing (to use your example) doesn't come down to morality, much less the context behind the theft. It doesn't matter if, for example, the thief is on the verge of death by starvation in a society unconcerned with poverty caused by an absence of equity. Nor does it matter if the thieves were a bunch of impoverished farmers taking back crops seized by mercenaries after their inept baron discovered he couldn't otherwise afford his new vacation villa. All that matters is the loss of social control and order the robbery represents. If the very next law in that given nation's codex also happened to enshrine slavery a social pillar, Hellnights would absolutely enforce it (as others mentioned, there's an entire order of ostensibly largely Lawful Neutral Hellknights who are dedicated to just that) even though depriving someone of their personal freedom is the greatest theft possible (well, next to their life itself).
So no, Hellknights aren't anywhere near Antipaladins on the evil scale. They have far much more in common with historical samurai at the height of the Shogunate era, though they're obviously far more tied to a philosophy than a feudal structure. Most Paladins would surely look down at the overwhelming majority of the Hellknights' "ethos," though, and would have absolutely no time for an organization that finds worthwhile lessons in--literally--Hell. Again, absent far greater evils, conflicts between Paladins and Hellknights, as well as schisms within the latter, would be inevitable.
Judge Dredd would be an absolutely stereotypical Hellknight. I'd be surprised if he wasn't one of the inspirations for them.