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So turned Karzoug into ancient evil?I mean he is an ancient Evil.
I just find it interesting kyrt thinks he's more powerful than Abadar.
Same approximate tier of power really. The gap between odd levels and the even level immediately after is meaningful but not massive. Going from even levels to the next odd level represents either a large step up (2 to 3, 18 to 19 etc) or a huge step up in transitioning between tiers of play (4 to 5, 8 to 9, 12 to 13 or 16 to 17)
If I was going to rewrite RotRL from scratch with the same scope the story would end by level 16 or so. Demigods rather than full gods.
One of the BEST aspects of pathfinder to me is the relative vagueness between the power of the assorted "supreme beings" in their cosmology. We know that rovagug is stronger than most, and that demon lords and celestial whatevers are weaker than most, beyond that the lack of Lesser, intermediate, greater makes me enjoy the setting.
Now TBH now I think my variant Champion could work just as well as Oath based class.. with Oaths of Protection, Oaths of Retribution and Oaths of... Evangelisation?... or smth not necessarily gods per se.Now I think we could strip those quasi-divine forces from Champion, healing, spells, rather give him... conviction bonuses - like divine grace is no longer divine gift, but just matter of conviction of champion adding to his defences.
In my 5e homebrew that's how I approached the issue. Instead of Paladins, I have Zealots, who possess a dice pool that they can use to add on to various d20 rolls. The creed they adhere to offers them additional abilities. Contemplation, Heralding, Strength, and Magic are the creeds I created.
I've always felt like Pathfinder Paladins could be approached the same way, with either creeds/oaths that suit difference deities or different sets of abilities that suit the alignments. I lean towards the former since it gives the Paladins more variety in how they feel and act.
So turned Karzoug into ancient evil?I mean he is an ancient Evil.
I just find it interesting kyrt thinks he's more powerful than Abadar.
Same approximate tier of power really. The gap between odd levels and the even level immediately after is meaningful but not massive. Going from even levels to the next odd level represents either a large step up (2 to 3, 18 to 19 etc) or a huge step up in transitioning between tiers of play (4 to 5, 8 to 9, 12 to 13 or 16 to 17)
If I was going to rewrite RotRL from scratch with the same scope the story would end by level 16 or so. Demigods rather than full gods.
That's the thing, I just find your concept of what makes a God in PF interesting, considering it goes against the entire setting.
But hey, your setting, your rules, so more power to you.
I assumed that was what the person who initially highlighted Abadar as a 'greater deity' meant. That he is in the class above Demon Lords
I'd say more than that.
We have true immortal lesser gods like Bright or Milani or Kurgass.They are above demon lords or empyreal lords.
But lesser than top 20.
But then I'd gladly see more Midgardish pantheon when various Golarion culture have deities that are always suspected of beings aspects with bit different lore between worshippers.
Like with Sarenrea and Tian goddess of Sun.
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The Only Difference between a Hellknight and a Paladin is literally what they write on the upper left corner of their character sheet and Hellknight was literally designed to get around the Lawful Good Requirement of Paladins and there was also the enlightened knight trait.
removing the alignment restriction on the base paladin means you don't have to write 9 different classes worth of copy pasted word count for what you could do with one.
this is true , LG can be argued easily to include superman and batman for example.
it has a fairly broad rangethe only real requirment is
have a strict code of conduct
be benevolent and further good
if these conflict err on the side of good
if these conflict err on the side of good
it's for paladin or LG?
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Is this just an issue everyone is talking about or did Paizo say something about Paladins?it is the same issue that has had 3 or 4 other paladin threads.
paladin alignment, play war priest, alt versions, etc etcand no paizo has said nothing about paladins
They haven't said anything directly, but it has been implied that the Paladin will be the Armor Master in contrast to the Fighter's Weapon Master role. Which I think is the major reason a lot of people are thinking Paladin may be becoming less...morally constricted. After all if Paladin forms a core party role, and Paladin still has a ton of restrictions on it, a lot of parties may not be able to have an Armor Master type character, just because of alignment.
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There was a situation in a game I was in that I think might demonstrate the concerns of traditional-paladin advocates in terms of how default "paladins" being non-restricted or significantly-less-restricted does detract from the identity of the class lore-wise.
My character had once been a paladin, but had fallen from grace prior to the start of the campaign in her backstory. Mostly due to a lot of impulsive actions and lack of discipline; things like secretly taking supplies from her order's headquarters to give to a friend who needed them, acting against orders because she thought she had a better idea of how to handle something, letting petty criminals go because she wanted to give them a second chance without really thinking about what they might do, etc. In game terms, shifting from LG to NG. The first time it happened, she atoned and regained her status, but fell back into NG again, and eventually decided she was better suited to serving her god in some other way. So, at the time of the campaign start, she was a NG Inquisitor. Most of her class features and spellcasting went into keeping up a pretense of still being a paladin - much less effectively - out of shame.
I got the GM's approval on the backstory, no problem. I think he liked the character concept. I think he overlooked why the second player's PC made it awkward. I went along with it anyway, and didn't make a fuss, but I did feel like it compromised my own PC and would have decided to play something else if I'd known in advance.
Second player's character was a NG paladin. Nothing to it other than the GM deciding NG paladins were fine too.
I'd have been fine with it if there had been an in-game reason for there being a difference. I would have been happy for the other player to have gotten some kind of houserule that let them play a variant of the class or something as NG. But my character concept was simply not really compatible with a setting in which paladins could be NG just as easily as, and otherwise identically to, LG. Altering the default assumption did make a difference. And it would bug me to have Golarion go from "paladins are basically always LG" to "paladins can be any alignment appropriate to their deity" just because.
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There's a difference.
Your friend swore an oath to be an NG Paladin.
You swore an oath to be an LG Paladin and you repeatedly broke it.
"Grace" is relative.
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snip
I mean, yeah I can see how that would suck, but that seems like an issue that a proper session 0 could have easily avoided. That's not really a reason to not change the general rule for Paladin alignment, it's just a reason to make sure everybody is on the same page before you start.
Plus what FaerieGodfather said.
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Not a fan of antipaladins?
Well, I can't speak for others but I certainly am not, and I have wiped the class completely from existence in my games.
Honestly I find the concept of an "Antipaladin" sort of a juvenile "edgy for its own sake" silly thing, and not even a "fearsome antagonist" like the "evilest of evil" thing should be.
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One thing that should be noted in this discussion is that Paladins aren't just "Holy warrior" class in 2e, it's "The Master of Armour" class.
It'd be very annoying and very dumb if you can only be a master of armour if your lawful good and never lie.
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Not a fan of antipaladins?Well, I can't speak for others but I certainly am not, and I have wiped the class completely from existence in my games.
Honestly I find the concept of an "Antipaladin" sort of a juvenile "edgy for its own sake" silly thing, and not even a "fearsome antagonist" like the "evilest of evil" thing should be.
That could apply to Chaotic Evil in general. But how would you stat a villain like Archaon the Everchosen (a mighty champion of the [extremely evil] Chaos Gods, with undeniable supernatural power, but definitely a warrior and not a spellcaster), or indeed any fallen Paladin or analogous martial champion of evil?
One thing that should be noted in this discussion is that Paladins aren't just "Holy warrior" class in 2e, it's "The Master of Armour" class.
It'd be very annoying and very dumb if you can only be a master of armour if your lawful good and never lie.
That's a very good point, and one that flew under the radar since that bit of information was announced.
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I am decidedly a Narrative Gamer. When I decide on a character concept, I immediately begin researching how and where that kind of character would fit into the world. Currently I'm working on a mounted archer build based on Attila the Hun, and after a bit of research decided a person of Shoanti descent would be the most likely to resemble Attila in both culture and personality. Now I'm further shaping my character design based on that determination. I find this technique makes things easier on the GM, because my character is already a part of the world and doesn't have to belong to some unknown homebrew tribe nobody has ever heard of before because it was just made up for me because I want to shoot things from horseback.
As far as non-Lawful Good Paladins are concerned, I am decidedly in favor of keeping them 100% Lawful Good, no exceptions. If Paizo left the decision up to me, I would keep Paladins Lawful Good and completely ignore the screams, shrieks, and demands of those who want it otherwise.
However, while I would prefer that to be the case, I could live with a compromise that stated Paladins must be either Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral and that Lawful Neutral 'Paladins' would smite Chaos instead of Evil. At the very least that has an aura of history in the game because in original D&D Paladins only had to be Lawful. Now at the time Lawful was assumed to mean 'good' and Chaotic was assumed to mean 'evil' but that's a whole other can of worms that I don't want to open up.
However, under no circumstances would I be okay with an Evil Paladin. We already have those. They're called Anti-Paladins and they frequently ruin games by being Stupid Evil or Chaotic Obnoxious. (To all of those about to start the barrage of specific instances where they played with Anti-Paladins who weren't disruptive at all, please note that I said "frequently ruin games" and not that they do so by default. I hope we can all agree that certain races and classes tend to be more inherently disruptive than others.)
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They're called Anti-Paladins and they frequently ruin games by being Stupid Evil or Chaotic Obnoxious.
So just as bad as terrible players with regular paladins then?
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I hope we can all agree that certain races and classes tend to be more inherently disruptive than others.)
Not at all.
Certain players tend to be more disruptive than others, but it's not because they're pretending to be some fantasy "class" or "race".
Other players can pretend to be the same "class" or "race" and not tend toward disruption at all. So, there's not any "tendency" that is attributable to the rules or the game.
Just certain players with those tendencies.
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I hope we can all agree that certain races and classes tend to be more inherently disruptive than others.)Not at all. Certain players tend to be more disruptive than others, but it's not because they're pretending to be some fantasy "class" or "race".
In essence no special tool or text is required for a jerk to be.
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In essence no special tool or text is required for a jerk to be.I hope we can all agree that certain races and classes tend to be more inherently disruptive than others.)Not at all. Certain players tend to be more disruptive than others, but it's not because they're pretending to be some fantasy "class" or "race".
True, but certain classes provide more excuses for disruptive behavior than others. An Anti-Paladin required to be Chaotic Evil is going to more difficult to play in a non-disruptive way than a class not required to be Chaotic Evil.
There is no 'disruptive' race or class. Just players. A few months ago, we had some new guys join us that both made goblin characters. And they were amazing. Yes, the goblins were a little annoying in-game by pulling pranks and occasionally stealing stuff but they weren't murderous or disruptive. I think the worst thing they did was try to steal our fighter's full-plate when he was sleeping and while running away, one of them cast Prestidigitation intending to turn said armor camo-colored so they could hide and instead turned it pink with little red hearts. The fighter was the only one chasing them because everyone else was laughing too hard - both in-game and out. Said fighter is a bear-kin and 7 feet tall and the goblins were less than 2 feet. So one goblin was carrying the legs by wearing it like a tube top and the other was using the armhole to see out of from inside the torso.
Sadly, one of the goblin players had to quit due to a schedule change and the other didn't want to play his goblin without his goblin buddy and changed his character.
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There is no 'disruptive' race or class. Just players. A few months ago, we had some new guys join us that both made goblin characters. And they were amazing. Yes, the goblins were a little annoying in-game by pulling pranks and occasionally stealing stuff but they weren't murderous or disruptive. I think the worst thing they did was try to steal our fighter's full-plate when he was sleeping and while running away, one of them cast Prestidigitation intending to turn said armor camo-colored so they could hide and instead turned it pink with little red hearts. The fighter was the only one chasing them because everyone else was laughing too hard - both in-game and out.
Sadly, one of the goblin players had to quit due to a schedule change and the other didn't want to play his goblin without his goblin buddy and changed his character.
This is literally the kind of stuff that makes me despise the idea of them as playable, much less core.
True, but certain classes provide more excuses for disruptive behavior than others.
Not at all. If I'm attempting to be disruptive, then it is my character's behavior, not their alignment, that causes the disruption.
How would you like to have someone play an airheaded, emotional fighter in your game? Lawful, Good, and gets upset over every little slight and every tree or animal that is harmed. Forgets their basic tactics, always apologizing for daydreaming.
That is disruptive. But it doesn't make them not Lawful, or not Good.
It is not the class, or the race, or the alignment that causes disruption. It is how the player chooses to behave, in character.
Someone who wants to be disruptive has excuses for that behavior no matter what class they are playing. Most commonly heard saying, "But it's what my character would do"!
Goblins that DIDN'T cause trouble make you despise the idea of playing them?
Lets see what we would Call the 9 alignments of Paladins:
LG: Paladin
NG: Champion
CG: Warrior of Hope
LN: Royal Guard
TN: Bastion of Balance
CN: Defender of Freedom
LE: Tyrant
NE: Blackguard
CE: Antipaladin
Just a few ideas i tinkered around with when i explored what other kinds of Paladins or "pala-likes" there could be. You could have something like the "Grey Wardens/Paladins" for True Neutral, but i always pondered on a concept of a Group that is there to fight for true Balance to the point of it starting to get confusing for those not in their order.
royal guard is a terrible name.
so all the good get smite evilm all the evil get smight good and the LN and CN get smite law and smite chaos respectfully?
And the True Neutral get "Smite Everything In Sight"?
Perhaps the True Neutral could just have a simple blast attack that works kinda like Smite.
Thinking even more on it, if Paladins had to be tied to alignments, rather than a four corner spread I think I'd go for a row spread. So you'd have:
- Paladin: Good, smites Evil
- Blackguard: Evil, smites Good
- Enforcer: Law, smites Chaos
- Liberator: Chaos, smites Law
- Bastion: Neutral, smites LG CG LE CE
But what I really prefer is what I laid out earlier today: a non-magical Cavalier who actually earns his or her paladinhood and thus can optionally become a supernatural holy/unholy warrior at higher levels.
True Neutral could have "smite Extremes" like CG, LG, LE, CE, or basically have a less effective blast as Heather 540 said and Call it something cheesy like "Restore Balance"
Also the name of "Royal Guard" was just something i thought of as the Neutral Lawful Paladin possibly would be in the fanatical defense of their authority, in this case a King, a Emperor or similar.
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Fuzzypaws beat me to it, even used a lot of the same names, but:
You don't really need 9 Paladin variants. Just do 4.
- *Good (The Paladin)
*Lawful (The Enforcer)
*Chaotic (The Anarchist)
*Evil (The Blackguard)
Just require one portion of the character's alignment to match the primary. The current Paladin is basically Good, but with a Lawful bent. So in this system he would be a Good Paladin, just belonging to a Lawful Order. That actually suits the way the Paladin is built better anyway, because there's nothing mechanical about the Paladin that makes it Lawful, all its abilities are Good/Anti-Evil. This also makes something like the Hellknight order that pretty much accepts all Lawful types pretty easy to implement, because LG Enforcers still care more about the Law than they do about Good, enabling them to co-exist with LE Enforcers.
If you really want to do a TN variant you could add that as an order who's goal is just to prevent imbalance, like AD&D Druids, but that could get a little silly. Probably would not give them a Smite ability.
EDIT: Or if Smite is too important to give up, just give them a half-powered version that works on anybody that's not True Neutral.
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no to that neutral thing.
they get an active defense against everything....
well look at this way, True smite which would be smite everything is over powered at lvl I get my smite class feature, and if TN did get TS, they would be banned from pfs and everybody's table and labeled smitemurderhobos
And yet you are not banning Wizards, Barbarians, Rangers, or any other class that possibly have better offense and defenses than a Paladin earlier and more often?
If the "smite everything" is what "kills" it, then ofcourse there would be other things more fitting to put in its place, but honestly your argument is as bad as the anti-goblin players that says exactly the same thing. Banned and labeled murderhobos... as if no other class is FAR more efficient at their task.
no to that neutral thing.
they get an active defense against everything....
well look at this way, True smite which would be smite everything is over powered at lvl I get my smite class feature, and if TN did get TS, they would be banned from pfs and everybody's table and labeled smitemurderhobos
And yet you are not banning Wizards, Barbarians, Rangers, or any other class that possibly have better offense and defenses than a Paladin earlier and more often?
If the "smite everything" is what "kills" it, then ofcourse there would be other things more fitting to put in its place, but honestly your argument is as bad as the anti-goblin players that says exactly the same thing. Banned and labeled murderhobos... as if no other class is FAR more efficient at their task.
Not really that it's OP compared to other classes, but if it's OP compared to the other versions of Paladin then you just get tons of TN Paladins running around because it's the "optimal" choice.
I figure purely for symmetry's sake you could do:
- An armor-focused martial type for the 4 corner alignments (Like Paladin, Crusader, Tyrant, Blackguard)
- A fixed version of the Shifter for a warrior type for the the 5 partially neutral alignment.
- The Druid as a full caster for the 5 partially neutral alignments
- A new full caster class for the 4 corner alignments.
Not really that it's OP compared to other classes, but if it's OP compared to the other versions of Paladin then you just get tons of TN Paladins running around because it's the "optimal" choice.
Well we do already have the Grey Paladins or Grey Wardens or whatever as a archtype per say, and despite all of the "optimal" versions of classes you have seen around we still see a few around. Paladins are good, and even if the TN was better its just a different toolset and concept.
So you have the Arcanist, why would you ever play a Wizard or Sorcerer? Why play a Fighter ever when you have Paladins, Barbarians and Rangers?
Why play X class because Y class/variant is "optimal"?
Still the thought on the question of optimal in a lot of classes and options in Pathfinder is that they are just bad in general, like you pick the Unchained rogue as its a superior and updated version of the rogue.
The argument of "popularity by power" might have been valid if it wasnt because of the experience of the community and the groups were never picking the "optimal" choices, they picked what they wanted to play. And that "powergamers" is frowned apon quite a bit.
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I figure purely for symmetry's sake you could do:
- An armor-focused martial type for the 4 corner alignments (Like Paladin, Crusader, Tyrant, Blackguard)
I wasn't aware armour mastery was an extreme-alignment restricted thing.