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Because people, like a paladin, devoutly protect what they believe in.
The forum voices are incredibly loud about what "they think" a paladin should be. I personally really like the whole anthema thing, and feel it should have probably been enough for paladins rather than making alignment restrictions. Honestly, from what I've seen so far in Starfinder, I'm not sure why alignment is still a thing, other than as a guide to help you be in character.
Opinion: alignment should be like the character's gender. Doesn't really matter, but nice to know. Tying a mechanic to it seems a tad backwards to me in a world where game systems in general (including D&D itself) are moving away from binary alignment concepts. Even the Playtest book itself says the following:
"Her alignment can change in play as her beliefs change, and you realize that your character’s actions reflect a different alignment than the one recorded on your character sheet. In most cases, you can just change your character’s alignment to match your new discoveries about your character and continue playing."
Their in most cases is literally just paladins...
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Exactly because many disagree with you there. That simple.
It was motive of multiple discussion threads even before the playtest started, in which it was more than clear that some want a open paladin, some think it could be only good and me and others believe it should remain LG only.
Simply put, while you might drop the restriction, i would quite literally add it back in my games second one if it wasnt there to begin with. No way im GMing a pathfinder game with a non LG paladin in it.
Ultimately it was left open to change based on playtest feedback during surveys. So who know where the final edition will stand. One can assume some questions they will ask will be referent to this.
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Far from 'across the board'. It is quite rightly LG only.
Also not a surprise, they spoke about this and if they do paladins of other alignments they want the time to do them properly and not just a lazy switcheroo of "evil" to "good" or "chaos" or "mercy" to "cruelty". Which can only be a good thing, because the only thing worse than a non-LG paladin is a non-LG paladin with bad and lazy mechanics.
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The arguments about LG paladins and free tier alignment paladins always comes down to an argument of state. I normally do not weigh in heavily and just browse the forums unless something really just sticks me, (though at this rate I may post something specific to deal with something thats bene bothering me unrelated to this) but this connundrum and the heat of the argument surrounding it is baffling. I actually sit mostly middle of the road in this debate, as I am a fan of divine champions of faith and battle, not just clerics, for all dieties, but the term Paladin I reserve for purely LG diety champions, both due to its actual history with Charlemagne (specifically the built mythos around him and his Paladins) and the history the class has built through the systems.
I actually agree to an extent with the application of LG in the playtest, more as a limiting factor to see how people respond to a measure of alignment limitation left in the system. However, creating an archetypal champion for most alignments is not particularly difficult, just requires a building block based on the dieties common to the alignment with adjustments for anathema. This means abilities need little replication, as each alignment provides a different benefit, such as most good alignments providing protection and healing, neutral alignments providing defensive and field control buffing, and evils providing debuffing and inhibition methods (summoning undead and dread auras to control the battlefield) as a single axis example.
The problem has always boiled down to what people ascribe to the titulature or if the mechanical structure is their piece of antiquity. Shutting down others, claiming purely that one side is correct can become both short-sighted and selfish instead of debating. While I am an adovocate for an procedurally generated, alignment built divine champion of dieties, with each having its own titulature, so that Paladins can claim their place in the system while not pushing others out. Many may disagree with my method, but I ask everyone to keep it civil and not resort to claiming that others should just deal with it, and hopefully we can find a common compromise...
Remember, they have done studies on this kind of thing... 60% of the time, it works every time!
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Well, from the previews the Paladin is LG only in the playtest because it is the most iconic and they want to get it right.
That's accurate.
The finished game will have all of the other alignments so-called pallies.
They haven't actually said that.
If OR when we do make more paladins and antipaladins, having constructed a solid foundation for how an alignment-driven champion functions will be a crucial step to making all of them engaging and different in play.
Emphasis added.
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Its a glorious tradition worth defending. Not every class has to have a "me too" option. Paladins stand alone as defenders of justice and righteousness. If you want to play a watered down divine fighter just play a fighter/cleric multiclass and your problem is solved
This mentality doesn't really work anymore because the paladin now has a specific mechanical niche; it can do things that a fighter/cleric couldn't but that a great deal of players and parties would definitely want to utilize.
Fighter-Clerics can't make Retributive Strikes, can't provide constant area buffs, can't gain legendary proficiency with armor, and can't protect their allies to the degree that a paladin can. Defensive techniques like these should not be the exclusive domain of Law or Good, as Durability and Sustainability are virtues for any soldier regardless of alignment. Forcing a specific code of conduct and divine allegiance on anyone who wants to competently protect their companions strikes me as limiting and shortsighted, especially if it ends up leaving other alignments trailing behind in terms of options.
While I'm discussing this, I would also like to say that the Oaths are incredibly limited in their applicability. Favored Enemy was an unpopular class feature because it only came up in specific circumstances and was otherwise useless, and the new Paladin Oaths fall into the same trap. If the devs want to create ability that negates the penalty on retributive strike or allows lay on hands to be used offensively, then it would make more sense gameplay-wise for this ability to be equally viable against all types of opponents.
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I am baffled as to how this keeps making it into core rulebooks in multiple editions. This is one of, if not the first, rule thrown out by DM's across the board. Saying a paladin must be lawful is somewhat reasonable, although I'm not a fan of limiting classes especially core ones by alignment at all, but saying they are good makes no sense given Clerics alignment restrictions (or lack thereof). Why can a paladin not follow an evil or neutral god and match their god's alignment, while Clerics can follow neutral/evil gods?
Because you can't achieve legendary status with heavy armor if you aren't a paladin. This is just obvious.
Or become part of a treacherous, exiled group of women that dabble in slaving. Whichever. It's probably the same thing.
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I'd prefer the base class to be a generic Knight/Sentinel class and the paladin LG stuff be an archetype that costs feats to create and lets you get all the goodies with feats, smite evil doesn't even exist anymore and the replacements for it are underwhelming...
Plus, most of the class features in old editions from what I remember seemed over powered because they had the alignment baggage as a balancing factor, with the baggage coming on two axes instead of one. This meant abilities could be a little stronger without fear of the player becoming abusive of them. The current build does not perform stronger than the other classes on most scales.
It's a dark day when we see good turn on good.
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Well, from the previews the Paladin is LG only in the playtest because it is the most iconic and they want to get it right.That's accurate.
The finished game will have all of the other alignments so-called pallies.They haven't actually said that.
If OR when we do make more paladins and antipaladins, having constructed a solid foundation for how an alignment-driven champion functions will be a crucial step to making all of them engaging and different in play.Emphasis added.
Ah, what a wonderful cop out. Chances are there will never be even a half decent non-LG paladin.
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I have never been a fan of Paladins, and one of the biggest reasons was the alignment restriction. The other big reason was how much stronger they were than the other base martialclasses. The idea that the alignment restriction was some kind of balancing drawback was BS, if you are wanting to play a knight in shining armor and champion of justice then why would you ever steal or lie anyway? So in good campaigns where the goal was to save the land from evil along with a solidly good party you just got a bunch of buffs and extra damage with no drawbacks. All it did was limit what your other PCs could be.
But now that the class has a goal other than to be a beefy evil slaying super hero, it’s a perfect opportunity to open them up to other alignments. Use the anathema from their chosen god to determine their “code” and have them lay on hands/bad touch and smite based on their good/evil alignment. Or have that be determined by their deity like how cleric’s gods determine the spontaneous casting they can do. Super easy.
Truth be told, I also do not like alignment at all and would rather it gone, but as long as we have it we shouldn’t restrict classes based on it. Having (un)holy champions of all alignments will open up so many more character possibilities.
There are certain people at Paizo who think that divine classes were too loose in PF1 and want only to restrict them further. I don't think it'd be possible to change their minds even if LG Paladins were universally reviled among the community.
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Its a glorious tradition worth defending. Not every class has to have a "me too" option. Paladins stand alone as defenders of justice and righteousness. If you want to play a watered down divine fighter just play a fighter/cleric multiclass and your problem is solvedThis mentality doesn't really work anymore because the paladin now has a specific mechanical niche; it can do things that a fighter/cleric couldn't but that a great deal of players and parties would definitely want to utilize.
That's more a problem of bolting that mechanical niche onto the Paladin than the Paladin itself. Which I think should be removed. The Heavy armor stuff for the record, not the Retributive Strike, it's very fitting.
In fact, aside from maybe the Fighter, I'm all for removing all Equipment based effects and Feats from the Classes, too much pigeonholing.
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There are certain people at Paizo who think that divine classes were too loose in PF1 and want only to restrict them further. I don't think it'd be possible to change their minds even if LG Paladins were universally reviled among the community.
Yeah, I've been thinking that too, ever since the core book released, and the line from the domain blog, listed below:
You'll notice the alignment lists not only Shelyn's alignment of neutral good, but also all the alignments her clerics could have in parentheses. Listing it this way allows us (or you, for your own deities) to be more expressive when creating deities.
was proven to be a deliberate, if not lie, at least obfuscation of the truth. Where the near universal understanding was that some deities would be a bit more restricted, and some would be broadened, apparently Paizo felt that their previous system was too permissive. I do actually feel that there are some dissenting opinions among the designers, but I feel like the ones at the top are the ones most opposed to it, so it'd be hard to see it come to light.
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I'd rather see Paladins (or alignment) go away entirely than to let someone write "Paladin" and "Chaotic Neutral" on their sheet.
We can have "Paragons of Alignment" classes for other alignments, but we shouldn't call them Paladins.
We can have "Champions of your deity" classes and none of them should be called Paladins, IMO.
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Clerics are actually better at doing the paladins old job than the new paladin is thanks to their ability to cast with weapon in hand and channel smite.
It's kinda sad the paladin is forced into this babysitter role.
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They killed alignment restrictions on every other class except Cleric though they hogtied the cleric even more by stating they MUST worship a god while in 1e it was stated you could choose not too. Listen, Paladins should be allowed more alignment leeway. Either all good or the four-corners. But what do I know, I'm like 2 inches away from dropping Pathfinder entirely because it seems like for every time they try to change the game for the better it fails and what I've seen of 2e I am not impressed at all. There is not one thing I have read or seen or heard of that makes me go "yeah, I want to play that/run that." Not one thing. And the paladin issue just goes straight to the fore of the list of issues I've had with the game since 1e's release.
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They killed alignment restrictions on every other class except Cleric though they hogtied the cleric even more by stating they MUST worship a god while in 1e it was stated you could choose not too.I am all for that as I hated Clerics of "Concepts", messes with too much stuff. Normal Clerics got their powers bestowed upon them. Clerics of Concepts believed in something really strongly, no matter what it is, and they gave themselves superpowers out of it. Really bizarre dichotomy.
Either all good or the four-corners.
I'd love Paladins to be any Good and Antipaladins to be any Evil.
They killed alignment restrictions on every other class except Cleric though they hogtied the cleric even more by stating they MUST worship a god while in 1e it was stated you could choose not too.I am all for that as I hated Clerics of "Concepts", messes with too much stuff. Normal Clerics got their powers bestowed upon them. Clerics of Concepts believed in something really strongly, no matter what it is, and they gave themselves superpowers out of it. Really bizarre dichotomy.Either all good or the four-corners.I'd love Paladins to be any Good and Antipaladins to be any Evil.
"Concept" Clerics are no worse than any other concept in the game where you have characters running around bestowed with powers from gods, power from the fact their grandma got jiggy with a devil, people who rage so hard they become better swimmers, and any number of other things. But hey at least you're chill on the Paladins = any good. I kinda cut it short but yeah I am down with Anti-Paladins = any evil.
Though I would say kill alignments wholesale but I guess they refuse to do that for some reason that I honestly cannot fathom.
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Just to toss in my two cents. I think the idea of a Paladin being the Paragon and Defender of its Alignment sounds very interesting and fun. A Paladin doesn't just worship a Deity, they worship what the deity stands for. A Paladin of Asmodeous would worship the idea of following the law as written and using it to achieve your goals. Just as a Paladin of Shelyn worships the beauty and creativity of art. A Cleric follows and preaches the teachings, a Paladin defends and embodies what the Deity stands for.
Again, these are just my thoughts on what I would like to see as someone who didn't play Paladins that often but preferred playing the Antipaladins.
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There is a glaring issue for the play test that there are only two paths to legendary heavy armor proficiency and one is gated by alignment and the other by gender (gray Maiden), but I suspect that issue will be resolved with the introduction of the Hellknight.
However, this still means that there is no path to getting heavy armor not tied to a specific narrative type that probably includes other restrictions on your character concept. The General Knight in shining armor (not paladin specific) is not looking very well supported, especially since armor is not included in any part of the cavalier archetype.
Only Knights wear armor, duh.
Uggghhhhhh
You all know they've already said that they're going to have Paladins of other alignments in the future of PF2, but they wanted to go LG for the play test to make sure the mechanics worked.
So....just be patient.
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I actually sit mostly middle of the road in this debate, as I am a fan of divine champions of faith and battle, not just clerics, for all dieties, but the term Paladin I reserve for purely LG diety champions, both due to its actual history with Charlemagne (specifically the built mythos around him and his Paladins) and the history the class has built through the systems.
Charlemagne's Paladins, in addition to being the source of the actual word, are often cited as the inspiration for the class (with Arthurian myth, etc, coming in as well). But Roland and Olivier, most famous of Charlemagne's Paladins, provide us some helpful perspective.
Roland and the Paladins' heroic greatness basically boils down to one thing: They very bravely killed a lot of foreigners. They were generally decent people, certainly, but they were not shining paragons of lawful goodness as we might imagine.
One of the famous Roland and Olivier stories, for instance, involves Roland explicitly lying to Olivier so that he can claim all of the glory of a battle (not for God or country but for himself). There's a moral at the end of the resolution and Roland is taught a valuable lesson by Olivier, but he is not a paragon of justice. He is a paragon of heroic combat - of courage.
This LG nonsense is a nostalgic hangover based on a malformed understanding of historic antecedents and an alignment system that provides no utility beyond telling us what Paladins must be and what deities you can follow, as if there's no possibility for evil people to revere good gods (again, many counterexamples in mythology and history).
It's interesting to me, also, that people desperately want ranged Paladins (not supported by anything resembling tradition or antecedent) but believe they should be LG.
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Uggghhhhhh
You all know they've already said that they're going to have Paladins of other alignments in the future of PF2, but they wanted to go LG for the play test to make sure the mechanics worked.
So....just be patient.
This is absolutely not what was said. They said that they would consider it, maybe, in the future, which is no promise of anything at all. They're basically just passing the buck onto future publications expecting us to wait for all of PF2's life cycle (you know, the exact same thing they made us do for PF1).
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I mean, I think dropping the Lawful good requirement for Paladins doesn't mean that suddenly all Paladins will be Chaotic Evil. After all, if we only drop the alignment restriction, suddenly the LG alignment becomes more of an implicit thing, then explicit. With how the oath and anathema are written, people who are paladins would need to be good, and would tend to be lawful. Thus, most paladins end up being LG in the end, as they still need to follow their code, but also allows for interesting characters who have to choose between their instincts, and their righteous powers.
I would argue the same for Clerics, but that would require oaths to each God, and that would take up so much space I can understand making that explicit just to save space.
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Uggghhhhhh
You all know they've already said that they're going to have Paladins of other alignments in the future of PF2, but they wanted to go LG for the play test to make sure the mechanics worked.
So....just be patient.
Archetypes for class features(not feats): We know how these work so they won't be in the playtest.
LG Paladins: We know how they work so that is all you get in the playtest.
Well that seems odd, doesn't? if they ACTUALLY planned non_LG paladins they'd want to playtest those mechanics...
Uggghhhhhh
You all know they've already said that they're going to have Paladins of other alignments in the future of PF2, but they wanted to go LG for the play test to make sure the mechanics worked.
So....just be patient.
Archetypes for class features(not feats): We know how these work so they won't be in the playtest.
LG Paladins: We know how they work so that is all you get in the playtest.
Well that seems odd, doesn't? if they ACTUALLY planned non_LG paladins they'd want to playtest those mechanics...
I don't know if it's hopeful optimism, but something I noticed about the different classes with subclasses (i.e. Druid order, Barbarian Totem, Bard Muse, ect) is that they all work pretty differently, leading me to wonder if they're also trying to playtest what flavors of subclass people are most/least excited by, and thus it could be said that the playtest of the druid is not just a playtest of the class but also the system of druidic orders, and how much people value flexibility in subclasses vs how much they want their subclass to define their class.
I bring this up because it is my main hope for non-LG paladins. If their plan is that the playtest is a testing ground for the popularity and viability of certain mechanics designs and they look at, for example, bard, barbarian and druid not as their final designs but as templates for what classes with some sort of substratification in a way, and they intend for paladins outside of LG to fit within whichever paradigm or paradigms they see the most positive feedback on, then I could absolutely see why they might not only want, but need to keep paladins LG only in the playtest, because they don't want to bias the data. Of course as I mentioned, this is a lot of supposition and a bit of hopeful optimism
If only there really were new and different kinds of Paladin 'subclasses' now. Your biggest choice is picking Shield, Sword, or a Horse. This is not the same as Fury Totem, Storm Order, or Bloodlines,
Paladin, Antipaldin, and Hellknight would be awesome different choices for the base class.
With the new clarification on Warded Touch so it now reads:
Prerequisites champion power (lay on hands)
You cast lay on hands in a simple motion without any complicated gestures. The Somatic Spellcasting action for lay on hands loses the manipulate trait, and you can cast it and deliver your touch with a hand holding a weapon or shield.
Does this upgrade our ability to use Vengeful Oath and deliver the touch using a weapon attack instead? Can it?
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I really wish the Paladin would get decoupled from "you are a martial representative of your deity" (since a- that's a Warpriest and b- all deities should have that) and more towards a "you are a paragon of your alignment" so we can do different flavors of what it means to be a Paragon of whatever alignment, and give them different mechanics.
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My thoughts on the paladin class:
Paladins are and should be LG only, period. They are historically and typically seen as the divine champion of LG deities, and they should remain that way. Why, because whether people like them or not, they are special champions of a LG god, and always have been. Just like antipaladins should only be CE champions of a CE god. Those are the two extremes. They should remain special instead of being clumped together under the name "paladin".
That said, I have always liked and agreed with the idea of other alignment "paladins". I think they should follow the old 1E D&D approach (Dragon Magazine 106) or 3.5E (Dragon Magazine 310 & 312), and give other aligned "paladins" a different name. Yes it's semantics, not right or wrong, it's just my opinion. Paladin for LG, Antipaladin for CE.
Now, we don't need to necessarily go with a name for every alignment of "paladin", like they did in the original Plethora of Paladins article (Dragon Mag 106) or the later Paladins of Other Alignments and Blackguards article (Dragon Mag 310 & 312). But they could, because these "champions" of gods of other alignments are just as unique, or should be. I prefer the names used in Dragon MAgs 310 & 312 (Sentinel-NG, Avenger-CG, Enforcer-LN, Incarnate-N, Anarch-CN, Despot-LE, Corruptor-NE), though I am partial to the old ones too from Drag Mag 106 (Myrikhan, Gareth, Lyan, Paramander, Fantra, Illrigger, and Arrikhan). But they may have copyright issues.
Since they are using feats to establish powers for the classes, all they need to do is create a base "paladin" class for the other alignments: good (NG or CG, as Paladins are LG), neutrals (LN, N, CN) and evils (only NE or LE, as Antipaladins should still be only CE). This would save creative space. Then add in different feats to create your different paladins, with unique and varied abilities.
We already have one name for other evil "paladins" that can be used, Blackguard. Any LE or NE "paladin" would be under this name. Sentinel or Guardian for NG and CG, and Equalizer or something for LN, N, and CN.
The point is, everyone needs to stop making "Paladin" the name used as the catchall for "paladins" of other alignments. Paladins are and always have been a unique class, and the other aligned "paladins" should be given the same consideration, because they are worth it. I'd rather be able to play NG or CN "paladin" with unique abilities and name than just be a Paladin with a different alignment.
Paizo has the opportunity to make a true impact on the idea of different alignment paladins, and create unique classes for them based of the alignment's outlook, new abilities, and different niches, to make them as lovable and playable as the regular paladin.
Last comment. I love paladins, they are my favorite class. But I also love the idea of other aligned divine champions, and they should be given the same love and attention in creation and playability as the standard paladin. SO, I am both pro Paladin (leave them alone) and pro Divine Champions of other alignments (make them unique, and fun to play).
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Agreed, any good or any lawful would be better. Perhaps specifically have a clause for not evil stuff, but as a base class it needs to be more open.
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I can see the conceptual argument for not using the term "Paladin" for other alignments than LG, because I really don't care about the semantics as much as I care about the idea of the conceptual space for characters who are champions of an ideal, and gain their powers from devotion to that ideal (I also have opinions on the mandate that Paladins have to worship a deity now), but I think the problem is that if there is no standard terminology, the easiest way to present this as an idea that people support is to use terminology that might not be accurate to the final implementation: i.e. I don't think anyone cares that the champions of alignments other than LG be called Paladins, but the simplest way to ask that this conceptual space be supported in the mechanics is to say "See that paladin class over there? I want something like it that isn't just tied to the ideal represented in the alignment of LG, but has space for other ideals"
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I can see the conceptual argument for not using the term "Paladin" for other alignments than LG.
I do agree, it should be a generic class with X orders, and the LG order would be the Paladins with lay on hands as an order power.
It seemed like the dev didn't want a generic class with very divergent order that locks you out of the other orders. But if you take a look at the sorcerer, it's what they did with the four magical traditions.
The simple fact that the paladins is the only class left with an alignment restriction is an aberration, and they showed with the second edition that they could keep the pure Paladin identity with a combination of Powers and Orders/Tradition/Anathema/Feats.
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Did clerics just blink out of existence? They have alignment restrictions too you know.
The simple fact that the paladins is the only class left with an alignment restriction is an aberration, and they showed with the second edition that they could keep the pure Paladin identity with a combination of Powers and Orders/Tradition/Anathema/Feats.
They do not have an alignment restriction, you can create clerics of any alignment, you just have a limited choice of divinity depending on your alignment (or a limited choice of alignment depending on your divinity). It could be the same with the generic version of the paladins, with the Paladin order requiring LG, but other order enabling different alignment.
Edit: I am fine with limiting powers, orders and feat to an alignment like what is happening with clerics, but not with an entire class.
I will point this out again as it was pointed out before during said hundreds long post threads regarding the paladin already.
they showed with the second edition that they could keep the pure Paladin identity with a combination of Powers and Orders/Tradition/Anathema/Feats.
To you and some others this was enough.
To me and some others, paladin are a core component of the game and one that MUST BE LG.
Ultimately, as this thread once more points out as people once again tossed the same thing around. There is no right way out of this lock.
I do also agree with time and more books down the line, new classes based on the other alignment should appear, none of them like the paladin ofc, but on their own niches.
Either way, with the current class system i imagine our old hybrid classes like hunter might not make the cut for this edition anyway, so there is already an open spot for where new classes can come from here.