I had this thought in a different thread, but realized it probably belongs here:
Perhaps the "Paragon" Archetype could be an early (or even core rule book (post playtest) addition that helps characters from all different classes become the most dedicated proponents of their faith or ethos without pushing them towards either having to be a caster (cleric) or a holy knight (paladin). Most of these paragon character builds probably want the class feats granted by the class that more closely resembles the thing they want to be a paragon of, rather than Knightly oriented feats. The Archetype grants you a code related to a relevant anathema and possibly grants access to some form of the paladin's more "champion" like, and less knightly, abilities.
I had this thought in a different thread, but realized it probably belongs here:
Perhaps the "Paragon" Archetype could be an early (or even core rule book (post playtest) addition that helps characters from all different classes become the most dedicated proponents of their faith or ethos without pushing them towards either having to be a caster (cleric) or a holy knight (paladin). Most of these paragon character builds probably want the class feats granted by the class that more closely resembles the thing they want to be a paragon of, rather than Knightly oriented feats. The Archetype grants you a code related to a relevant anathema and possibly grants access to some form of the paladin's more "champion" like, and less knightly, abilities.
Whether or not this solves the issue at hand this is actually an awesome idea. I want to play a paragon of chaos or law or whatever who isn't a divine caster.
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I'm in 4 corner alignments Paladin Camp. I just can't see a good reason to restrict the class to only LG (I am seeing a lot of "I like it the way it is" and "It's always been like this, don't change it") when so many people want it opened up. Having the option to play something other than LG doesn't stop one from playing LG. I'm hesitant to open it up further as it's going to create a large amount of work for Paizo attempting to balance and write for 8 or 9 alignments. Also the corner alignments offer a nice juxtaposition to Druids having to be one step within TN.
Anyway, it seems that Paizo is attempting to make the classes more modular, this can work out pretty well for the 4 corner alignment route. At first level you pick one of the corners and you get the Good/Evil and Lawful/Chaotic properties. When picking class feats you can only pick feats that have a tag matching your alignment. That way instead of balancing LG, CG, LE, and CE as a whole you really only need to balance Good v Evil and Law v Chaos when it comes to the class feats.
It may help to give individual codes for each alignment however. Writing codes to follow for each alignment pair then attempting to follow those codes is going to be a headache and probably take up the same amount of space in the book, if not more.
^You don't have to restrict Champions to the corners to avoid having to wrote up all 8. Some of them can cover a range -- for instance, Hellknight for all Lawful (yes, it's a prestige class, not a base class, but you get the idea, and such Champions really ought to be prestige classes anyway).
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I am for paladins as any good, and antipaladins as any evil. Neutral deities must choose which ones they want.
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I am for paladins as any good, and antipaladins as any evil. Neutral deities must choose which ones they want.
I feel that relaxing the alignment restriction on the LG Paladins to being Any Good would really hurt the people for whom the Paladin being LG is an essential part of the class
I believe there are other ways to bring happiness to people who look for non-LG Paladins
I am for paladins as any good, and antipaladins as any evil. Neutral deities must choose which ones they want.
Why not Hellknights for Any Lawful, some yet-to-be-determined class(*) for Any Chaotic, and some yet-to-be-determined class(*) for Any Neutral? (And yes, their coverage would overlap.)
(*)Preferably prestige classes (or whatever the equivalent is going to be called in Pathfinder 2nd Edition) in all cases, including Paladin and Antipaladin.
^Why not also a Mandate of Elysium and a Mandate of Nirvana?
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I am for paladins as any good, and antipaladins as any evil. Neutral deities must choose which ones they want.I feel that relaxing the alignment restriction on the LG Paladins to being Any Good would really hurt the people for whom the Paladin being LG is an essential part of the class
I believe there are other ways to bring happiness to people who look for non-LG Paladins
sadly, you would/could be wrong.
because to do what you feel, would hurt the ones who want it opened up to any good.
I believe that there is way to open it up to any good and please the most of the players as paizo will not be able to please everyone.
for instance, you could make a mandate of heaven feat/ class feats/ archtype that would grant bonuses for the character to be LG and against those foes who are ce and this is on top of the generic paladin
If the Mandate of Heaven Paladin equals the playtest PF2 Paladin, then this might satisfy the "LG crowd". But then that means that the PF2 vanilla Paladin would in fact be a new class. Not just the playtest PF2 Paladin with its alignment requirement expanded to any Good
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Chaosadins and Lawladins, bring 'em on. just something about that word, Paladin, though,. just makes me think of something Lawful and Good. Well, also that great American Western telly show theme tune, that is used in Stand by Me.
"...a knight without armour in a savage land..."
Paladin from Have Gun Will Travel is an example of a fictional character who makes an excellent LG Paladin example. And how such a character can work as a mercenary. It's super good inspiration for PC Paladins for precisely that reason.
I recommend it for that purpose to anyone who likes Westerns.
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The "other way" would be to print a class mechanically identical to the Paladin but open to "any good" alignment. Which would just be a waste of pagespace.I am for paladins as any good, and antipaladins as any evil. Neutral deities must choose which ones they want.I feel that relaxing the alignment restriction on the LG Paladins to being Any Good would really hurt the people for whom the Paladin being LG is an essential part of the class
I believe there are other ways to bring happiness to people who look for non-LG Paladins
Or create a new class with different powers that would fit the alignment better, beginning with the CG alignment (my favorite solution)
Or if you wish make the all Good Paladin an archetype of the LG class
^Problem is that when they actually did this (except for LN/LG/NG instead of for Any Good, but it still demonstrates the point), the result left a LOT to be desired. This has left some people not feeling good about this prospect . . . .
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Yep, the real sting in the pants of the Paladin is that in Pathfinder it was focused on opposing Evil. You had to use an archetype to oppose Chaos over Evil. The mechanics of the class were: Heal the Injured, Protect the Vulnerable, and Defeat Evil. To a great many people, the Paladin does not come across the "Champion of Lawful Good", its comes across as "The Champion of Good, Who Happens To Be Lawful."
A new class just to have a Chaotic equivalent is then scratching its head going "The Paladin kind of already has all the traditional elements of the Good aligned Champion." and then there's going to be pushback if you try to make it an actual Champion of the Good alignment. Because that's the Paladin's thing, and this has to do something else.
If Paladin remains the "Best at facing Evil" class then people that want Chaotic Good 'Paladins' aren't going to be satisfied with something 'appropriate' to CG like "Opposes tyranny.' because that's such a limited scope and something LG Paladin is supposed to do already. There's no good track record for making a CG Champion, because the Paladin is already claiming the key elements to a Champion of the Good Alignment, and trying make a CG Champion different just leads to it being less of a Good Aligned Champion.
I think the people that see the Paladin as "Champion of Good Who Happens To Be Lawful.", just want a "Champion of Good Who Happens To Be Chaotic." Not a class that has to fit some criteria of "Are these abilities Chaotic enough?" because the Paladin doesn't have that microscope focused on it be sure its abilities are Lawful enough.
It doesn't satisfy everyone, but to me the best solution really is to just have a sidebar with a Code for Neutral Good and Chaotic Good, or just Chaotic Good. Says "Many players and GMs prefer Paladins open to alignments other than Lawful Good. In such case this/these code(s) can be followed by Paladins of other alignments." The LG Paladin supporters can be happy that their version is the baseline, Paizo can figure out if they exist in Golarion or not, and CG supporters can be happy that the book acknowledges they exist and gives them a Code they can use as a baseline.
Then, down the road, if you want to have a more "This is really CHAOTIC!" CG Paladin, its just an archetype that has to use the CG Code.
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It doesn't satisfy everyone, but to me the best solution really is to just have a sidebar with a Code for Neutral Good and Chaotic Good, or just Chaotic Good. Says "Many players and GMs prefer Paladins open to alignments other than Lawful Good. In such case this/these code(s) can be followed by Paladins of other alignments." The LG Paladin supporters can be happy that their version is the baseline, Paizo can figure out if they exist in Golarion or not, and CG supporters can be happy that the book acknowledges they exist and gives them a Code they can use as a baseline.
Then, down the road, if you want to have a more "This is really CHAOTIC!" CG Paladin, its just an archetype that has to use the CG Code
This sounds excellent :-)
Yep, the real sting in the pants of the Paladin is that in Pathfinder it was focused on opposing Evil. You had to use an archetype to oppose Chaos over Evil. The mechanics of the class were: Heal the Injured, Protect the Vulnerable, and Defeat Evil. To a great many people, the Paladin does not come across the "Champion of Lawful Good", its comes across as "The Champion of Good, Who Happens To Be Lawful."
A new class just to have a Chaotic equivalent is then scratching its head going "The Paladin kind of already has all the traditional elements of the Good aligned Champion." and then there's going to be pushback if you try to make it an actual Champion of the Good alignment. Because that's the Paladin's thing, and this has to do something else.
If Paladin remains the "Best at facing Evil" class then people that want Chaotic Good 'Paladins' aren't going to be satisfied with something 'appropriate' to CG like "Opposes tyranny.' because that's such a limited scope and something LG Paladin is supposed to do already. There's no good track record for making a CG Champion, because the Paladin is already claiming the key elements to a Champion of the Good Alignment, and trying make a CG Champion different just leads to it being less of a Good Aligned Champion.
I think the people that see the Paladin as "Champion of Good Who Happens To Be Lawful.", just want a "Champion of Good Who Happens To Be Chaotic." Not a class that has to fit some criteria of "Are these abilities Chaotic enough?" because the Paladin doesn't have that microscope focused on it be sure its abilities are Lawful enough.
The cool thing is that they've pretty much fixed this problem already. Most of the Paladins abilities are now optional. (through feats) So all they need to do is throw in some "Anti-Chaos Feats" then bam you have a Lawful focused Paladin. (if you so choose) Even better is that you don't HAVE to choose those feats. You can then make a Lg Paladin or lG Paladin. the choice is yours... Thereby freeing the Chaotidin to do the same.
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Immunity to Fear I see as a Chaotic trait more than a Lawful one. The God of Bravery is CG in Golarion after all. Immunity to Disease and Divine Grace seem decidedly Neutral to me. Auras I could as more Lawful I guess.
I've definitely seen Divine grace as a chaotic thing. Actions have consequences, but Divine grace keeps your paladin from being subject to those consequences. "You cannot bind me!" they might as well say.
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Chaos is random. Chaotic alignment is not.
I want the idea that chaotic alignment = random to die in a fire. It's part of what created this mess in the first place, because it leads to the idea that if you're able to follow simple instructions, or keep a promise, you're too lawful to be CG or CN. And leads to people picking CN so that they can screw with their party members "Hey I'm just acting random according to my alignment!"
Chaos is random. Chaotic alignment is not.
I want the idea that chaotic alignment = random to die in a fire. It's part of what created this mess in the first place, because it leads to the idea that if you're able to follow simple instructions, or keep a promise, you're too lawful to be CG or CN. And leads to people picking CN so that they can screw with their party members "Hey I'm just acting random according to my alignment!"
I'm not seeing the idea that Chaotic alignment=random going away anytime soon. Especially if Chaos=random is true. There's too large of a disconnect to say that they do not equate the same. Especially if Chaos=random is how you see things in RL. I find that I have to seriously retrain my brain to not equate the two.
Yeah, I find that annoying too. Especially since Neutral is treated in the same way. It's just a pass at doing whatever they want.
Rolling twice and taking the best roll can be argued to fit lawful alignment too because it enforces much more consistent result from your dice roll.
These are just all assumptions one can make.
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If I use the word luck, does it fly better ?
TBH, no. But Ill apologize for how forcefully I stated my point in my last post, you just happened to hit one of my buttons and did not deserve my reaction.
Now, for a theoretical CG paladin of Desna, or any other deity of luck, yes your suggestion makes a lot of sense. I could also see the same mechanic used for a diety of Fate. I'd also say it'd work for the Chaosknight in the other thread, since the flavor for that class is specifically channeling Chaos instead of simply advocating a chaotic outlook.
It might seem like splitting hairs, but I feel these are important hairs to split.
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Group 3: Hates alignment.
Group 4: Wants the mechanics/a tanking class. They don't care about the story behind paladin that much.
I fall into these groups. I won't mind if the game publishes and supports Groups 1 and 2. I'm used to house-ruling both alignment and Paladins when I run a game.
But given that folks like to use tools like Hero Lab, where the published rules are enforced by the application, it would be nice if Paizo mentioned options for groups 3 and 4 enough that tools like Hero Lab would support them as configurable options. That way Hero Lab isn't going nuts when you make an unusual character for a home-brew setting. Home-brew GMs don't need the extra work of having to make their own Hero Lab configuration files.
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The compromises listed would create a ton of work for Paizo, which makes them very unlikely to be implemented. Ideas need to account for that.
Building alternative alignments in the vein of the Tyrant archetype is reasonable. Building 3-8 alternatives that have distinct balanced mechanics is not reasonable.
We don't know what they planned for class feats, but aside from the oath and smite ability, nothing about the paladin is lawful or good. You could make an argument for lay on hands in the same vein as cleric channel energy. Everything else is more about the character's role independent of alignment.
My solution would be to add a few (4 to 9) variations of smite chaos, evil, good, and law. If you want to separate lay on hands, define a more offensive ability and tie it to whether a corresponding cleric would channel positive or negative energy.
In a later book, add more differentiation by diety.
No, flexible alignments would be easy to implement and easy to balance.