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To be honest, I kind of hate a lot of stuff about alignment to begin with, but at least with Paladins it sort of makes sense.
Core to the Paladin's identity in popular culture has been the "good" bit, such where an evil paladin is just known as an antipaladin. Whether that antipaladin is lawful evil or chaotic evil isn't super relevant, it's the basic moral differences that distinguish them. Chaotic Good paladins aren't "anti"-paladins even though they're also two steps removed from LG just like Lawful Evil paladins. The law/order axis is largely tangential, and a lot of GM and player advice regarding paladins tends to suggest that most groups shouldn't be lending too much weight to the lawful end of the bargain unless the player themselves wishes to do so.
So my thoughts are that I don't really like the idea of mechanics being tied up in the alignment of the character, at least as far as law and chaos goes. Good/evil is less of an issue since evil characters are usually going to be NPC's or are otherwise going to be part of a very particular kind of campaign so rarely is a player going to really have a choice between playing a paladin or anti-paladin. But when the choice between law and chaos is possibly build-critical, that sounds really irritating for everyone involved, whether they think only LG paladins should exist or if they'd rather have the possibility of anarchist paladins smashin' baddies. No one really wants to have to dip into a kind of paladin they thematically hate because they have a better build for that alignment.
The same can be said for clerics since a lot of bonus spells are tied up in very specific gods, and since every god has a very specific spell list that means making up a pantheon for a different setting will end up being a pain in the ass. I do like what 5e did with them by giving the gods themselves various domains, then it's not hard for a GM to just give gods appropriate, pre-existing domains and so long players choose a thematically appropriate god for hte powers they're using it'll work out.
Iunno, I'd rather the current paladin options regarding alignment were instead just available to all paladins regardless of alignment, and that those class features weren't flavored to be so alignment-specific. Just let the GM restrict alignment if they want to for a specific setting or whatever, people have been playing CG paladins in PF1 for ages and the setting didn't implode.
Pure neutrality, taken to extremes: one Plane dedicated to True Neutral is the Akashic record, so someone dedicated to the protection and collection of all knowledge, without regard for the morality of it, how dangerous it is etc would be a possibility, going where ever the information is, no matter the danger or cost.
Eh. That's pretty Lawful in my book.
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One of my biggest concerns (other than the whole reactive nature of the class) is that each alignment is being pigeonholed into a specific and arbitrary role. Why is defense lawful? Why is neutral good always about redemption? Liberation does lend itself to chaotic good, but that's not the only focus a chaotic good 'paladin' could have, and would be something I'd think any good paladin would care about, just not necessarily as the primary focus. A chaotic good defender or a lawful redeemer make just as much sense as the current options, but they're cut off for no good reason. They apparently just exist to make it so that paladin equivalents for other alignments exist, but aren't Paladins. I'd rather the different good versions weren't necessarily mechanically distinct. Just make Paladin have the requirement Any Good, and the main difference would be in priorities.
Lawful would care what the information is, neutral does not.Pure neutrality, taken to extremes: one Plane dedicated to True Neutral is the Akashic record, so someone dedicated to the protection and collection of all knowledge, without regard for the morality of it, how dangerous it is etc would be a possibility, going where ever the information is, no matter the danger or cost.Eh. That's pretty Lawful in my book.
I'm not sure they would. When I think about cultures dedicated to saving information so it doesn't get lost (there have been many throughout the years in fiction), they tend to be very rules based. Mosaic monks, Asimov's Foundation, House of Suns' The Vigilance, the Chung Ho from Deepness in the Sky Uplift's Great Library, etc. Even Brainiac operates under a lawful demeanor. Lawful evil and abhorrently amoral, but he still follows a path laid out for him by his programming.
Their rules might not be law of the land or a government, but generally speaking "the archivists" tends to be a group the protagonist doesn't want to piss off and suffers the arcane or semi-religious practices the archivists have in place in order to get the information that they need. Sometimes the rules are in place for a reason, sometimes they're tradition twisted by centuries who's original meaning is lost. But in most cases the hero abides by the rules and the villain does not because the monks, crazy as they seem, are people who know what they're doing and do it for (generally) moral reasons.
(Brainiac deviates on this latter point, but only because he is following the goal weights set for him--value rare information--and the tropes of Evil AI take over from there. Had a goal of valuing life as a source of new knowledge or the goal of disseminating knowledge to others been included, his actions would have been less villainous.)
Knowledge, and the safekeeping of such, can't be chaotic. It has to be ordered and maintained. Organized and secured. The information itself might be unlawful, or the use of knowledge unlawful, but the practice of keeping it safe for when it might be needed is not. It may be against the law of the local government--such as the robot monks work from the 11th voyage of Tichy in the Star Diaries--but that does not itself a make the preservation a chaotic act: every government that we have ever seen that has promoted the destruction of knowledge and works of literature has been those of a dictator and we've already seen that a LG paladin does not consider the laws of such an entity to be an anathema to break.
Draco18s, tI think this comes down to a basic problem with the Lawful/Chaotic axis:
If you define Lawful as "having structure/following rules" and Chaotic as "lacking structure/breaking rules", then you are really just defining Lawful as rational and Chaotic as irrational and no one should want to be a Chaotic character.
Lawful can't be the same thing as "rules based", because that makes Chaotic a nonsensical alignment. Consider the traditional depiction of the fae. Faerie courts aren't typically described as lacking rules. In fact, common descriptions of the fair folk describe them as having a surplus of rules - binding rules, that must be followed or you are lost forever.
Yet most people would use the fae as the example of what a Chaotic society would be. In fact, without being at least somewhat rules-based, Chaotic creatures can't have a society, because a society is defined by rules and structure.
So... where does this leave us for the law/chaos axis?
My personal interpretation is that law vs chaos is a matter of priorities, or more specifically an answer to the question "what makes an action right?"
Lawful characters tend towards saying "There exists somewhere a master code of correct actions, and if you take only those actions then you are doing the right thing". Meanwhile, chaotic characters would tend to say "The outcome is what matters; if your actions had a desirable outcome, then no matter what actions they were, you did the right thing."
In other words, lawful characters tend towards traditionalism and proven methods, while chaotic characters tends towards progressiveness and mold breaking.
I like this interpretation because it easily maps to real life, and it means that there are strong arguments in favor of both alignments.
My homebrew version of Golarion is currently engaged in a cold war between a group of Lawful kingdoms and a group of Chaotic kingdoms (with good and evil kingdoms on both sides), so I've put a lot of thought into this. :)
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Sorry to say, but I hated 4e alignment. Chaotic Good is one of my favorite alignments, and reducing everything to just good vs evil is boring and oversimplified, and makes it incredibly hard to tell stories involving shades of gray.
4e made it very clear that it was a setting designed to tell stories about goodly heroes thwarting evil villains, or vice versa, and only those stories. It measures every person in the world on the scale of "how good are you?" and ignores any other possible standard. Hard pass, for me.
I'm not sure I like the suggestion that Lawful Good and Chaotic Good are "better good" than Neutral Good, though. And... Partly it comes down to feel. It rubs me the wrong way to have Robin Hood be a Lawful Good character.
"Willing to do evil things for good reasons" fits neatly into Lawful Good with the way I describe Lawful and Chaotic. "Willing to do evil things to get good results" fits neatly into Chaotic Good in the same way.
In other words, the 2-axis system is less restrictive and doesn't make a statement on what the objective best way to be is. You can't call something "Lawful Good", say it is more good than "Good", and then argue that you just picked the word "Lawful" at random.
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I think what might be helpful here is a very, very oversimplified explanation of anarchist thought.
So anarchism is largely centered around the idea of hierarchy and why it's bad. Society, to an anarchist, has injustices because someone "outranks" someone else in some capacity and thus has power over them, power that can be abused.
This isn't the same thing as there being no rules or organization, and an anarchist might argue that a society without hierarchy will better conform to good and just rules than one with hierarchy where those with power can ignore those rules.
Pure "no rules" is where an anarchist might start calling someone evil, where we start seeing ancaps pop up with their recreational nukes that they get to privately own because the free market said so.
And then there's people who think that anarchism is inherently evil or at the very least dangerous to Good societies, given their propensity to smash the state and call cops mean names.
My point in bringing that up is that different people are going to be very attached to their interpretation of alignment, that might really take issue with being forced to be Lawful or Chaotic or Neutral just so they can have a particular reaction ability that fits their build and party composition needs. I don't see the benefit and I think alignment for a paladin is going to remain a big deal even if they're just Good instead of a particular flavor of good. Paladins are going to have strong opinions whether or not that's mechanically enforced, and I think alignments should be given the same freedom we see in backgrounds. So long you're not picking something wholly inappropriate (ie an evil alignment) it'll probably fit conceptually just fine.
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Again my two cents:
Having abilities tied to specific alignment may make sense if we take the entire alignment spectrum into consideration.
For a cleric it makes thematic sense, that they gain powers from their deity and thus their respective corner on the alignment axis. But that is more a thematic choice, than a mechanical choice. There are lots and lots of divine patrons, that have overlapping domains. Sure there will be cases, where you can't have your cake and eat it, but you are not truly limited. Push come to shove agree with your DM to have a deity of your choice of flavor and your set for life.
For the paladin, who is dedicated to the idea of good (law and chaos are just semantics here really), it makes a rather poor argument to say, that there lawful paladins only care about defending peeps and the chaotic ones only care about respecting your personal space and freeing slaves. Why can't the paladin decide on their own, how to further the cause of good on their own? Regardless of their outlook in life. After all, they all are on the side of good.
Why dictate what a character feels passionately about with mechanical choices? It takes away players agency, limits role playing options and just shoehorns us into playing something that we may not have wanted.
I'd like to see the alignment restrictions on mechanical talents be removed entirely, and replace it with a modular system for the paladins code.
The paladin class should start with a very basic code (do good, fight evil) and gradually expand it as they level up with what I like to call oath talents. These add new passages to the code, while granting more powerful abilities. You don't necessarily have to take them, to keep your "moral" options flexible, but in turn you give up the chance on some neat goodies.
This way you can express what drives your paladin to do what they do, give them mechanical benefits and still adhere to the basic tenents of your alignment.
And also remove the link to deities. Paladins fight for the universal concept of good. Don't need a god for that. We have clerics for all our theological needs.
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My beef with removing the link to deities is that I don't like the idea of being able to just will divine magic into being. Kinda takes the "divine" part out. If you want to be a champion of your alignment, go for it. But you want to be a divinely empowered champion of your alignment, then unless you are mythic you should need divine backing.
To me a divine champion with no deity makes as much sense as a player saying "I want to be a sorcerer, but I don't want my magic to have anything to do with my bloodline".
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Atheist paladins have been a thing, it is possible to draw divine power in Golarian from sources other than deities. Someone with such strong convictions in doing what's right that they gain command over the powers of good is 100% thematically a paladin.
Tbh a sorcerer that just has a natural knack for magic that isn't related to their bloodline isn't a terrible idea either, and better justifies their use of CHA as a casting stat. They're literally just winging it and finding success, much to the annoyance of wizards who actually worked for their power.
Atheist paladins have been a thing, it is possible to draw divine power in Golarian from sources other than deities. Someone with such strong convictions in doing what's right that they gain command over the powers of good is 100% thematically a paladin.
This is really a setting thing. Paladins without gods are certainly a thing, just not in Golarion. For better or worse, they seem to have decided that Golarion Paladins need a good. Previously there was a disconnect between the rules and the setting, so it wasn't outright required in PF1, but with the linking of setting and rules, PF2 looks like it'll enforce the point. I suppose it's possible the devs might change their minds and allow it. I can see various ways of paladins getting divine power without directly following a god. A like-minded god giving them power anyway, even though they aren't a follower could be one.
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Atheist paladins have been a thing, it is possible to draw divine power in Golarian from sources other than deities. Someone with such strong convictions in doing what's right that they gain command over the powers of good is 100% thematically a paladin.This is really a setting thing. Paladins without gods are certainly a thing, just not in Golarion. For better or worse, they seem to have decided that Golarion Paladins need a good. Previously there was a disconnect between the rules and the setting, so it wasn't outright required in PF1, but with the linking of setting and rules, PF2 looks like it'll enforce the point. I suppose it's possible the devs might change their minds and allow it. I can see various ways of paladins getting divine power without directly following a god. A like-minded god giving them power anyway, even though they aren't a follower could be one.
I think it kind of has to be more than just a setting thing. Paizo's trying hard to make a game that's inclusive to all sorts of people with different life experiences. Not everyone has had a good experience with religion IRL, so it'd be nice if those players could play in the default Pathfinder setting without necessarily needing to make their character religious.
It's a bit more of a stretch to give the same treatment to a cleric as a cleric really is actually about the god. When a particular thing actually is just part of the identity, like all Grey Maidens being women (meaning anyone who identifies as a woman), it's understandable to make that part of the rules and then expect tables to houserule around it to reflavor something to suit their needs. Those are quite a bit different from paladins, though, their core fantasy isn't the religious aspect but the zeal with which they try to do the right thing, classic do-gooder hero.
I think it's something worth making a change to the Golarian setting itself if necessary. If Goblins can go through all sorts of changes to make goblin PC's canon, then I think paladins being able to do paladin things without necessarily dedicating themselves to a god is more than doable. It might not matter particularly to you or me, but it very likely matters a lot to someone.
I think their logic probably follows mine, which is "you can do paladin things without being a paladin, but if you want divine powers that needs to come from somewhere".
Even Oracles get their divine power from somewhere external; I can't think of a single class in PF1e that gets divine power from just force of will and dedication to an alignment, excepting mythic characters. Paladins were the exception, but it was always an out-of-setting exception because in Golarion paladins were required to have a deity.
I get what you are saying about real world issues - I haven't had great experiences with real world religion myself. But like I said, it's very possible to be a champion of law and goodness without the word "paladin" written on your character sheet. People with that issue can very much play in the default Pathfinder setting without needing to make their character religious.
That said, you can't please everyone, and Paizo seems to be taking the approach that commitment to the consistency of the theological structure of their game world is more important. I think that's a valid choice.
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What annoys me about playtest paladins is not so much WHY they do things, its WHAT they do. Playtest paladins do very different things than PF1 paladins did, but that's for another thread.
On the difference between law and chaos, I feel chaos is a lot about conformism and fitting in, while chaos is is about showcasing yourself. Law "takes one for the team" while chaotics are "first among equals". Either side can like or dislike laws. Some examples.
China is a very lawful society, but having a written code of law is alien to their history. Instead they have conformity and the teachings of the ancient masters. Having a written code of law could be used by individuals to claim rights against society. Laws are not allowed to distort the power of conformity required by a very lawful society.
When Sweden exited the viking age, one of the things that was done was to codify laws. Earlier, laws had been something memorized by "gode", wise men and law-speakers. Naturally, these people held a lot of power. By codifying laws, everyone got access to the law. I'd say this was a reduction in the chaotic alignment of the vikings' descendants.
Someone fighting for the rights of minorities is breaking conformity and acting against the collective will of the majority, but do so using the laws of society. The law becomes the guarantee of the right of the few against the many. This can be seen as a chaotic using laws against the lawful.