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For people who are dead set on Paladin being a Lawful Good fixed entity, the solution is to make Paladin an Archetype. Thus, anyone in any class who satisfies the requirements of being an unwavering champion of goodness can qualify and advance (similar to Gray Maiden, etc).
This frees up classes to remain broader toolkits for enabling and empowering character concepts. And toolkits shouldn't be so narrowly focused on something as arbitrary as alignment.
And to reiterate, Paladins were not grand champions of goodness, historically (no more or less so than people with any other skillsets), they haven't always been LG in previous editions of dnd, and 'this is how they started' is a problematic argument unless you want Elf to be a class again.
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. The finished game will have all of the other alignments so-called pallies. (I say that, because to me paladins aren't servants of deities, they worship lawful good deities because that is what lawful good people do, but in the end they are paladins because they are heroic, chivalrous,and dedicated to good. They don't owe their power to any deities. Can any deity have divine warriors/champions? yes but these aren't necessarily paladins)
I like this conceptualization. Perhaps this is the approach Paizo should take in creating the paladin and any other alternate alignment "paladins".
Before a paladin becomes a paladin they are already by nature and heart the epitome of LG-heroic, chivalrous, and dedicated to good. As such, a deity has taken notice of him, and makes him a paladin.
As a cleric is a dedicated religious person who chooses to worship a god and gains powers for doing so. That's the difference.
Clerics choose the god and follow, paladins are chosen by the gods because of their character, and are blessed with special powers. And so, for each alignment type of paladin, they should be seen as a chosen champion of that alignment who has a deific benefactor.
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For people who are dead set on Paladin being a Lawful Good fixed entity, the solution is to make Paladin an Archetype. Thus, anyone in any class who satisfies the requirements of being an unwavering champion of goodness can qualify and advance (similar to Gray Maiden, etc).
This frees up classes to remain broader toolkits for enabling and empowering character concepts. And toolkits shouldn't be so narrowly focused on something as arbitrary as alignment.
And to reiterate, Paladins were not grand champions of goodness, historically (no more or less so than people with any other skillsets), they haven't always been LG in previous editions of dnd, and 'this is how they started' is a problematic argument unless you want Elf to be a class again.
You can say that a hundred times and a hundred times it will be refused.
Actually funny enough, that is how those threads got that far, cause it was the same 3/4 arguments going around over and over and over. Quite literally nothing new was added, just like this thread didnt add any new ideas, it just pointed ideas that were there before too. I can deny such a thing with arguments based on my opinion, you will point out your ideas based on yours and we wont move an inch, just like before.
Ultimately again, no right way out of this lock.
Since the dev team also shares this same divide, we have what we have.
Who knows, chances are they will go for the new classes or they will get a feedback that those surveys that will push for a change.
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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.
This
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Okay, I've largely avoided paladin alignment threads because frankly nothing of value ever seems to get done. This is one of the most contentious this community has ever gone to war over. I frankly don't give a crap about what alignment paladins wind up with. I do have two issues with the current set up however, Firstly the mechanical roles of heavy armor dude and divinely powered non-spellcaster( spell points/powers, i don't really know how to word that one, but lay on hands, domains, you get the idea) are locked to one alignment, unless you want to kind of put the monk in that second, but that's iffy at best. I feel like that's bad design, those are both kind of wide concepts that I feel like should be pretty open to anyone from the start. The second is more to do with the way the decision has been handled. I went back and read the paladin blog again, and yes, I understand paizo claims to have listened to both sides of the argument. I really have trouble believing that. At this point I would love to see something from the devs at least discussing what considerations each side was given, because at present it kind of reads like they looked to the LG only crowd and kissed their boots, then turned to the people advocating for more openness, to varying degrees and said, eh, maybe someday we'll throw you a bone. That seems, disrespectful. It doesn't help that neither side of the whole mess has really acted all that paladin like through the whole thing. Frankly at this point I'd almost like to see the paladin not just removed from core, but from the game in general. The community just isn't mature enough to handle it. Sorry that the whole post went a little bit long and blocky, but hey, my 3 cents
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First, Paladin = LG. Period. imho. That *is* what a Paladin is.
I am all for another class with similar powers that can be any embodiment of their deity but it needs to be called something else. It seems like this is what the Warpriest was going for, and so I wouldn't be surprised to see that later when this comes out for real.
Second, calm down. This is just the playtest. There are years and years worth more books with new classes and archetypes coming.
Remember week 1 of the blog era when I posted in our first paladin thread of this edition that I feared never having one again?
Silly me, I'm immune to fear, wait.....
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The war is over though. The die is cast. Let's let the argument die. Paladins are Lawful Good only. Now let us move forward.
A struggle against one's oppressors is never pointless! Vive la Resistance, Any Good Paladins forever!
And there began the second great battle in the war for the rights to the name paladins.
S!#& continued to be crazy yo, everyone talks about how great being a paladin is, until it's time to do paladin s#~+.
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Okay, I've largely avoided paladin alignment threads because frankly nothing of value ever seems to get done. This is one of the most contentious this community has ever gone to war over. I frankly don't give a crap about what alignment paladins wind up with. I do have two issues with the current set up however, Firstly the mechanical roles of heavy armor dude and divinely powered non-spellcaster( spell points/powers, i don't really know how to word that one, but lay on hands, domains, you get the idea) are locked to one alignment, unless you want to kind of put the monk in that second, but that's iffy at best. I feel like that's bad design, those are both kind of wide concepts that I feel like should be pretty open to anyone from the start. The second is more to do with the way the decision has been handled. I went back and read the paladin blog again, and yes, I understand paizo claims to have listened to both sides of the argument. I really have trouble believing that. At this point I would love to see something from the devs at least discussing what considerations each side was given, because at present it kind of reads like they looked to the LG only crowd and kissed their boots, then turned to the people advocating for more openness, to varying degrees and said, eh, maybe someday we'll throw you a bone. That seems, disrespectful. It doesn't help that neither side of the whole mess has really acted all that paladin like through the whole thing. Frankly at this point I'd almost like to see the paladin not just removed from core, but from the game in general. The community just isn't mature enough to handle it. Sorry that the whole post went a little bit long and blocky, but hey, my 3 centsAll I feel I need to say is this:
Just because they didn't give the non-LG Paladin crowd what they asked for doesnt mean they kissed the other side's boots. This was a zero sum game. There was no way to please everyone. One side, no matter what, was going to be unhappy.
They don't...
Except It's not a zero-sum game. That implies that both sides gained and lost equally, where ultimately nobody benefited.
This was not a zero-sum game. This was a "Paizo decided one side was right, namely that Paladins are Lawful Good only" game. And the other side got a vague statement that there might, in the future, maybe be non-LG Paladin-esque characters.
This might not have been a problem if paladins didn't hold near exclusive rights over the defensive typed character, with almost all defensive actions and feats as well as Legendary Armor Prof locked down (not that it actually turns out to be worth it in the end cause all it means is a +1, but that's a different argument).
More than that, there are people willing to compromise on the Paladin == Lawful Good argument, as far as making the Paladin a smaller part of a whole in the form of a new class, in which the Paladin holds a selection of exclusive, Paladin-y abilities such as Smite Evil and Lay-On-hands, while the other alignments of the class get other abilities like horse riding and non-righteous divine magics (as that does exist within the confines of Pathfinder). This does in fact fit within your purview of Paladin == LG, unless you will stand for nothing less then Paladin being it's own exclusive class, solely Lawful Good, with no other classes poaching those abilities.
Which, good for you, I guess. You've chosen to die on an uncompromising hill over a game, but with the arguments I've gotten into over Star Wars, I can't really criticize all that much.
It's also pretty hard to take the Historical angle on this as well, because, Historically speaking, Paladins weren't always holy, nor even particularly virtuous. They were, more than anything, Knights of particularly high rank, or simply special. The Image of the modern Paladin of DnD comes, ultimately, from one specific knight of Charlemagne, those knights who were referred to as Paladins, from the roman base Palatine, meaning a government official who worked on Palatine hill. This specific Paladin was noted of being particularly virtuous, and had a number of stories written about him. A better title for a Knight who serves a Holy cause would probably be Templar or perhaps Crusader, but those also run into some possible hangups in terms of definition.
Regardless, history falls apart on many of the names of classes throughout DnD, with especial attention to Monks and Sorcerers vs Wizards vs Druids, so I digress.
As for saying the die is cast, that is explicitly not true. That's kinda the whole point for the playtest, is that the die is *not* cast and that people who want to see it changed should continue to push for it. It is in poor taste for you to condemn those who wish to see change by essentially lying.
The whole alignment debate, I believe, comes down to more of an argument about whether or not alignment is explicit or implicit. In other words, does alignment dictate your actions, or do actions dictate your alignment? A tangent off that, but also important, is alignment actions that you perform or your beliefs?
Personally, I prefer the view of alignment is implicit in mortal creatures, defined by their actions, while it being explicit in immortal beings such as gods and demons, guiding their actions and ideals. As such, Paladins would be implicitly LG as their Oaths would push them to be so, but ultimately not a thing to codify as mortal beings are simply not the same as outsiders and immortals, which can be definably Good or Evil.
Now this whole post has been pretty long in the wind, but I think I got all of my talking points out there. lmao idc tho
EDIT: Rereading this, it comes across as a little terse, and I would apologize for that. Just wanted to get all the factual stuff out in as quickly of a manner as possible with devolving the English language.
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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.
I think you misunderstood my point. I never said that paladins should be something else than LG. I said that Paladin should be an order (see druid, bloodlines,...) requiring LG in a class that also enables player to create champions of other alignment by selecting an order other than Paladins. And Paladins should retain some of their key abilities as their order power.
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So, swap Paladin and Cavalier around in terms of class/archetype (i.e. make Paladin an archetype and Cavalier a class), that I could get behindI think you misunderstood my point. I never said that paladins should be something else than LG. I said that Paladin should be an order (see druid, bloodlines,...) requiring LG in a class that also enables player to create champions of other alignment by selecting an order other than Paladins. And Paladins should retain some of their key abilities as their order power.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.
I think that Paladins don't really fit as an archetype and a class of "Champions" is interesting. Paladins as we know them know would just be the LG path of the class, but it could open a lot of new cool concepts. A list of tenets being one of the most important thing for the class. With those tenets being defined by each order.
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There is nothing wrong with Paladins being their own class with the LG restruction. Nothing wrong. At. All.I think you misunderstood my point. I never said that paladins should be something else than LG. I said that Paladin should be an order (see druid, bloodlines,...) requiring LG in a class that also enables player to create champions of other alignment by selecting an order other than Paladins. And Paladins should retain some of their key abilities as their order power.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.
What is wrong is the lack of support for other champions in core. Paladins are a great class and concept, I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist or to give their abilities to everyone. I'm saying the class is a great template to build something more inclusive for everyone who wants to see other champions.
And the people who want to see these other champions are disappointed by the fact that paizo currently does not seem to be interested to use their great new tools (powers, orders, signature skills, etc) to create a more inclusive class.
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Knight class!!!!
Hellknights as a base class option.
No waiting for book 2 to get blackguards!!!!
Paladins are not unique, if we can get alchemist in core then we can at least get blackguards/antipaladins. They are considered the same class in PF1 anyway.
And there's multiple alignment variants.
I want hellknights and smite chaos as a base class.
Whenever people seek to dilute the core that is the Paladin...
Wherever the forces of Good cry out for a hero...
Whenever the forces of darkness chaos seek to eclipse the forces of Law and Good...There I shall be.
I shall not waiver, I shall not bend, I shall never give in, I will fight to my last, I will fight with my heart, I will not go quietly into the night, I will not quit without a fight, I will raise my keyboard high and I will lead the charge!
Now! Who among you will stand with me? Who shall become the light in the darkness? Who has the courage? Who has the strength to do what's right? Come with me! Once more unto the breech!
Now! Toggle your caps lock on! Whip out your second edition player's handbook! Slam down some Mountain Dew! Munch your Doritos! And follow me to glory!
For Gygax and gaming!
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
When we came upon the shores of eternal night, we despaired that we could not see the sun. We thought the promise that the dawn would always come had been broken, and left bare in the shores of Abaddon. But when the enemy fell upon us, and we drew our steel to meet their charge, we found the light. It had carried with us. A there was no boundary of rigid diligence, or unfettered well of innocent piety that need be tapped. The crude differences we demanded between us fell away, as we carried the dawn forward and brought end to the fell darkness.
No matter how often we are told that we are but waves crashing upon the eternal shore, we will come crashing upon them again. And no matter how long we're bound within this eternal night, we will look within and find the sun, for Hope shines bright!
--- --- --- --- ---
Them speeches is why I love Paladins. Sarenite Paladin in a Wrath game is basically shouting out the same speeches constantly. Saying "I do not fear the darkness and I will bring an end to eternal night! I am a servant of the Dawnflower, and where I walk, the Dawn walks with me!" is like my favorite thing ever. Players being told to screw off from having the cool "Light in Darkness" type powers because they don't gel with Lawful cheezes me off. As well as other alignments just in general apparently not being Good enough. Which is absolutely what "The Champion of Light and Goodness" class being only Lawful implies. Goodness, do I hate that.
I love Paladins and I want other people to love it too. So I'll continue to pester for a more open and accepting class that will get more players Championing the Light. If the books finally hit the shelves and its still LG only then that's when I'll accept defeat and kindly screw off. I just want to see the same effort put to both sides of the 'Good' axis, at a minimum. No real expectation that I'll get to have that, but I don't see a reason to stop asking.
Paladins of Any Good please! Or just a sidebar that says lots of gamers prefer Paladins to not be restricted to LG only, and tables may want to discuss the idea among themselves.
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Knight class!!!!
Hellknights as a base class option.
No waiting for book 2 to get blackguards!!!!
Paladins are not unique, if we can get alchemist in core then we can at least get blackguards/antipaladins. They are considered the same class in PF1 anyway.
And there's multiple alignment variants.
I want hellknights and smite chaos as a base class.
Yes! A class for when you really believe the crap out of something, and want to make it everyone else's problem! I'd be super down for that.
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They are a class.
They are Lawful Good.
Let us just move on.
"I got what I want. Stop asking for something else or maybe you'll get what you want instead of me."
Self-Interest is well and good, but since its your self-interest and not mine I don't feel any conviction to do it.
Devs: Paladins of Any Good, please and thank you. Or sidebar encouraging discussion of other alignments.
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They didn't say die.
I think it's pretty likely we get the 4 corners knights in this edition, since it seems like the best compromise solution. I just hope we don't call the CG one a Paladin (I like "Elysium Knight" or something).
Give the CG one more offensive and fewer defensive powers too- Chaos gets to break stuff, it's Law that's invested in keeping it from falling down.
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I think it's pretty likely we get the 4 corners knights in this edition, since it seems like the best compromise solution. I just hope we don't call the CG one a Paladin (I like "Elysium Knight" or something).
Give the CG one more offensive and fewer defensive powers too.
I am down for restricting the name Paladin to LG. But I think giving CG a name that is too narrow can put someone in a certain headspace about origins and so forth. "Elysium Knight" tied to planar energy, "Avenger" being kind of aggressive.
That being said, my ability to think of a better name is highly questionable. Bordering on useless... now officially useless. Elysium Knight it is.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition
Some related reading, for any interested parties.
That being said, my ability to think of a better name is highly questionable. Bordering on useless... now officially useless. Elysium Knight it is.
heh
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This is your opinion. This is not fact.
Paladins need to be LG. Period.
How is it possible that these statements are in the very same post? It boggles the mind.
The war is over though. The die is cast. Let's let the argument die. Paladins are Lawful Good only. Now let us move forward.
You'd never do that if you hadn't gotten your way. You admitted as much in this very thread. Your points will be taken more seriously when they're not so obviously hypocritical.
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The Archetype/Class swap between Cavalier and Paladin is an elegant solution.
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I'm throwing my hat in the ring on the "core options need to be more broadly applicable" argument. It's also weird to me that out of so few archetypes, the Gray Maiden, restricted to women only, is in the playtest/core book. LG-only Paladins and women-only Gray Maidens seem like something that should be in an out of the way campaign setting splatbook, not the core book. If they're that niche, make them properly niche and fill their design space with something broader for the core book. As it is, they're clogging their respective design spaces pretty badly in my opinion.
I am down for restricting the name Paladin to LG. But I think giving CG a name that is too narrow can put someone in a certain headspace about origins and so forth. "Elysium Knight" tied to planar energy, "Avenger" being kind of aggressive.
So one of the reasons I like Elysium Knight is that it reflects a symmetry with Paladin and Anti-Paladin- the latter being so named because it is a perversion of the former. So the Elysium Knights are mostly just taking the piss out of the Hellknights.
I prefer a strong through-line of Eristic Dada in my "good aligned champions of chaos", plus they can make a point of telling hellknights "the name of your organization isn't even accurate, since it's pretty clear some of you are headed to Axis."
I'm throwing my hat in the ring on the "core options need to be more broadly applicable" argument. It's also weird to me that out of so few archetypes, the Gray Maiden, restricted to women only, is in the playtest/core book. LG-only Paladins and women-only Gray Maidens seem like something that should be in an out of the way campaign setting splatbook, not the core book. If they're that niche, make them properly niche and fill their design space with something broader for the core book. As it is, they're clogging their respective design spaces pretty badly in my opinion.
I think it makes sense to include both in the playtest book since they're to hand and ready-to-go. They're both known to the fans to some degree and we can test this incarnation of them.
I think they'd have less justification of being in the Core Book (unless there are several more campaign world equivalents to the Gray Maidens also included), for the "crowding out design space" reason you cite.
I think the playtest was always going to be a limited slice of the eventual options. It seems to me that we should be wary of critiquing it as if it were a finished CRB (that last admonition isn't directed to you, just a general comment).
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I understand that the playtest is not necessarily representative of the core book's contents. If the inclusion of the classes/archetypes in question was limited to the playtest because they represented certain ideas that needed playtesting before they could be included anywhere, then I'm fine with it.
I think we're kidding ourselves, though, if we believe the Paladin won't end up in the Core book. In fact, the devs said the old core 11 + Alchemist. If we're not careful, we'll end up with another full edition of the full-martial buffer/guardian/savior/tank class being locked to a single alignment. It seems even more a shame this time around, considering that features like Retributive Strike make the Paladin actually work as a classic tank (draws focus) and action changes allow Lay on Hands to be used on a friendly the same turn you attack. The archetype is likely more effective than it was, but it's still as narratively limited as ever.
I am down for restricting the name Paladin to LG. But I think giving CG a name that is too narrow can put someone in a certain headspace about origins and so forth. "Elysium Knight" tied to planar energy, "Avenger" being kind of aggressive.So one of the reasons I like Elysium Knight is that it reflects a symmetry with Paladin and Anti-Paladin- the latter being so named because it is a perversion of the former. So the Elysium Knights are mostly just taking the piss out of the Hellknights.
I prefer a strong through-line of Eristic Dada in my "good aligned champions of chaos", plus they can make a point of telling hellknights "the name of your organization isn't even accurate, since it's pretty clear some of you are headed to Axis."
You would choose a name for Champions of Righteousness based solely on petty name calling? Well, I'm sold.
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I think it's pretty likely we get the 4 corners knights in this edition, since it seems like the best compromise solution. I just hope we don't call the CG one a Paladin (I like "Elysium Knight" or something).
Give the CG one more offensive and fewer defensive powers too- Chaos gets to break stuff, it's Law that's invested in keeping it from falling down.
Frankly, if Paizo was ever open to CG Paladins then the Virtuous Bravo would have been it. They're doing a very careful job of not particularly lying about it but they are definitely stringing us along by pretending that alternatives to the LG Paladin are a possibility.
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You would choose a name for Champions of Righteousness based solely on petty name calling? Well, I'm sold.
Chaotic Paladin-Analogues deserve to be just as smug as the OG version.
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This might not have been a problem if paladins didn't hold near exclusive rights over the defensive typed character, with almost all defensive actions and feats as well as Legendary Armor Prof locked down (not that it actually turns out to be worth it in the end cause all it means is a +1, but that's a different argument).
That's easy to solve. Remove equipment specific stuff from the Paladin (and other classes), it was a terrible idea and I don't like it. We have the "Knight in shining armor" saying but I've never focused on shields and armor when I've played a Paladin. My first thought went towards the weapon.
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I am perfectly fine with the Paladin being LG, but I have a big issue with training in equipment being tied to alignment and narrative restrictions. And I am having trouble seeing how they work heavily armored defender into the core without alignment restriction if it is supposed to be the paladin's shtick.
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If Paizo opens the class, I'm gone. If they don't I'll be staying.I don't think they are going to open the class in the core book.
Except that you are completely disregarding what some of us are saying. Please take the time to read it carefuly.
Most people here do not want to have a Paladin class with non-LG. What people want, is a class that is larger than Paladins but includes it, and part of that class would be alignment gated. What would be behind the LG gate alignment would be what is currently called the Paladin class.
Nowhere in that explanation we are saying that Paladins shouldn't be LG or to open them up (at least most of us here, I can't speak to everyone). What we are asking is to have a class enabling different Knights of different Order/Alignment, and that Paladins would be the LG version of that class.
See it as a "Knight Class" with "Paladin Order", "Hellknight Order",etc. The Paladins would live as they currently are as the Knight Class of the Paladin Order. We take NOTHING away from you.
Except losing the "Class" term, how does that affect Paladins and you?
Paladins would still get lots of support with the martials abilities of that class being open to all and the power abilities specific to each order.