Great concept; doesn't work with RAW; at least not 3.5 or earlier. You could do a paladin-type; but not one with all the powers of one.

In reply to willvr (msg # 31):

Rules that don't encourage refluffing of mechanics are one of the key reasons I don't play 3.5 or earlier. Thanks for reminding me.

In reply to engine (msg # 30):

In PF, you'd do that by picking an Oracle, or possibly a Celestial Sorcerer, or something else of the like. There's plenty of options for playing a "called against their will" character, it's just not something that the Paladin class is well suited to.

Note that all my Paladinic descriptions come from Fourth Edition which seems a lot more lenient in that respect. I'm pretty sure the PHB even suggests you can be an "evil" Paladin who deals Necrotic damage instead of Radiant. A Paladin is just a warrior who chooses to follow a particular deity and in doing so gains powers from them, afer all.

But again, I would not restrict this stuff solely to Paladins - they aren't the only Divine class, so why should they be singled out if they engage in behaviour that falls widely outside the tenets they're supposed to be following? I don't recall reading anything in the Fourth Edition books about "punishing" Paladins (or any other Divine class) who "misbehave" and I'm not at my computer right now so I can't check my PDFs. But I'm pretty sure it's a "handle it however you like" thing as opposed to "here is a rigid list of rules of stuff that will break a Paladin" thing :P.

This part is RAI: I think restrictions are more about being linked to a god than being divine.

For example, a Mystic (Dragonlance) or a Divine Bard (Unearthed Arcana) casts "divine" spells but they pull the power from inside them. By RAW, 3.5 clerics and paladins don't have to follow a god either, they may simply be following some cosmic idea.

On the flip side, warlocks are arcane but they get their powers from a patron. Or, for example, Wizards in Dragonlance get their magic from the gods and yet still cast arcane spells.

A warlock should be more worried about his actions than a divine bard, is what I'm saying.


This part is RAW: Also, for the "paladin who got drafted" concept...this is what the PHB specifically says:

"No one ever chooses to be a paladin. Becoming a paladin is answering a call, accepting one’s destiny. No one, no matter how diligent, can become a paladin through practice. The nature is  either within one or not, and it is not possible to gain the paladin’s nature by any act of will. It is possible, however, to fail to recognize one’s own potential, or to deny one’s destiny.  Occasionally, one who is called to be a paladin denies that call and pursues some other life instead."

ALL paladins get drafted. Either you hear a god (not actually the default), or you get this feeling inside you that says "this cannot stand, you must protect them". And yes, you can grudgingly follow the path without being happy about it.


RAI again: ALSO, there is NOTHING that says (in 3.5) that Paladins cannot associate with evil people. If you look carefully, the text says that they WILL not, rather than MAY or CAN not. Here are the various parts about a paladin's restrictions:

Alignment: Paladins must be lawful good, and they lose their divine powers if they deviate from that alignment. Additionally, paladins swear to follow a code of conduct that is in line with lawfulness and goodness. (Nothing here.)

Other Classes: ... While they cannot abide evil acts by their companions, they are otherwise willing to work with a variety of people quite different from themselves. ... (Evil acts =/= Evil alignment)

Ex-Paladins: A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities... (Refers us to the code of conduct.)

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents. (Again, only ACTS are a problem.)

Nothing in any of these. So where does the supposed restriction come from?

Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Now, the second sentence is clear. The paladin MAY NOT have anyone who isn't LG working under him. But obviously this doesn't apply to party members working WITH him, as paladins don't require an all-LG party.

Look at the first sentence. To me that sentence is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's just saying "paladins wouldn't do that". I mean, think about it. Look at other things the book says.

"Paladins take their adventures seriously and have a penchant for referring to them as quests. Even a mundane mission is, in the heart of the paladin, a personal test"
OR
"Any two paladins, even from opposite sides of the world, consider themselves comrades."
Heck, even:
"Humans, with their ambitious souls, make great paladins."

These sentences are all very clear and direct. Are we to assume they are never ever broken? Can we not imagine a crappy human paladin who thinks simple missions are an insult to his prowess and doesn't get along with other paladins? Of course we can. I think the "a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil" is similar. It is not something paladins do, sure, obviously. Why would they? But if they were forced to cooperate with someone who is evil but isn't currently doing anything evil, I rule that they wouldn't fall. If they wanted it to be that way, they would have worded it stronger, like the henchmen rule.


As an aside, yes you can have an evil character not doing evil. Once I had a CE Rogue, with 14 Wis and 16 Int. The setting was Majesty (the computer game) and I was a Gnome, which in that setting is an extremely oppressed race, living in the huge Human capital. If I could I ignored some laws or stole little things, but otherwise I was a decent law-abiding citizen. I even joined the army, though in a sort of scout/special forces unit.(So, more freedom than a soldier.) The other players asked, OOC, why I wasn't more...rampage-y. I said "If I get to level 20 one day, I promise you I will come back and slaughter the entire city. But I'm very, very weak and I have high mental stats. I am aware that if I start stabbing people the city guard would take me down in minutes. Why the hell would I do that? I'm not a demon, I'm just a selfish asshole. If I see a human lying alone in the gutter with money on him, I might slit his throat, but that's really about it."

A paladin in the same party as that character would have disliked my character (and it would be mutual) but I don't see why he should fall as long as I behaved and he was fully committed to stopping me if I step out of line.

In reply to Egleris (msg # 33):

All the more reason to try to make it work.

In reply to engine (msg # 36):

If a character needs a Mark of Justice to make them do something, they're being coerced. Intention factors into alignment A LOT, so you'd need to be Lawful Good outside of "being a paladin" for your idea to work.

Not that it wouldn't, but you need a motivation beyond "geased into it"

In reply to RosstoFalstaff (msg # 37):

Thank you for demonstrating one of the primary problems with paladins and alignment.

I don't know if this is where you're coming from, but what I see swirling around the issue of paladins are people who don't just want to play a paladin, but really wish they were a paladin, and that paladins really existed. This leads to very rigid and stark ideas about morality and law and goodness, that don't mix well with any other ideas, no matter how interesting they might be.

The reaction to my idea, which is one with some precedence in popular fiction, was swift and strong. That's the kind of reaction I see when someone is trying to preserve not just game rules but the ideals they adhere to in real life.

But whatever. I've already played a Lawful Good goliath-reflavored-into-oni who derived his behavior from a magical effect applied by the last member of a paladin order he slaughtered when he was stronger. Nothing had to be houseruled, and nothing broke. If anyone was itchy about it, they had the good grace to accept and add on. Perhaps they felt coerced into not saying anything, but the effect was the same as far as I could tell.

If that wouldn't fly at your table... frankly, who cares? What do you get out of lancing a cool idea that is never going to show up in your game?

In reply to engine (msg # 38):

I'd argue the subjectivity of "cool".

No idea has immunity from criticism, not even "good" ones

To tell the truth, I find this whole thread puzzling.  I've GMd games on RPoL with paladins, and played a couple of paladins in games.  One game I ran for over ten years, and the paladin was in it from start to finish.

And I've never run into any of the issues you people are describing, from either side of the GM screen.

So I'm going to have to guess that the problems all revolve around the mix of GM and players.

In reply to RosstoFalstaff (msg # 39):

Of course you would. That was my point.

The question is why criticize it, particularly here? What was the feeling you had when you saw that idea? What would it mean to you to let it go uncriticized? Would it impact your game? Would it impact your ability to play a paladin, knowing that someone wasn't following the rules? These are actually honest questions, because I think they relate directly to the issues presented in this thread: someone sees someone playing a paladin a certain way that doesn't quite jibe with theirs, and they have to say something, something they might not say to someone's face, because they have deep feelings on the matter.

There's a roleplaying concept referred to as "the Right to Dream." To me, it means that people want to treat things about their game as true, to the extent of those things existing in the real world. Some people do this for other media, too, like their favorite movie. When someone does or says something that doesn't quite fit with their dream, it interferes with their "right" to treat those things as real (or at least possible), and it irritates them. They'll act quickly to disprove it, or repair their "reality." A good example is the dedicated Star Trek fan who, when told that going faster than light is impossible, will shift quickly into denial mode or post links to stories of pie-in-the-sky "Real Soon Now!" future breakthroughs. People who deliberately try to undermine a persons' fantasy reality, like going up to a person in a Gryffindor scarf and saying "You know Hogwarts isn't real, right?" tend to be considered fairly rude.

What I'm getting at is that, with the paladin's close bearing on real-world morality, or what people dream real world morality is like - black and white, absolute, tangible, pure, willing, etc. - any deviation from their concept of paladin is actually an impingement on their wider belief system. More than any other class, I see people who imagine themselves as real-world paladins, paragons of an absolute, magical virtue. More power to them, except when they cause the kinds of problems mentioned in the original thread (not all of which would be caused by such people).

I didn't intend my idea to poke at anyone's personal concept of what morality is, or what they wish it were. I didn't even mean it as a house rule or violation of any mechanics. Any group that did think it was a cool idea could make it work, without breaking anything, and clearly anyone who doesn't can block it to their heart's content. That's called "buy in" and having it is what makes any fictional concept work. If one doesn't have it for this idea, fine. It's not really necessary to say here though, is it?

Only game I've been in where a paladin put a serious dent in the game that wasn't easily worked around was when the paladin in question didn't want to allow the rest of the party to use coup de gras on subdued/disabled monsters. Didn't matter that they were evil and had been trying to kill us, or that we lacked the materials/personnel to take/manage prisoners, or that leaving them would have put the party between multiple forces.

While it looked like he was RPing his deity well enough, there was an impractical level of inflexibility in evidence, too, and it brought the game to a standstill.

With that level of conflict, the paladin and group would have (realistically) decided to part ways, as his views vs the rest of the party were plainly incompatible -- but where does that leave the game? Either the one player can't RP his character as desired and stay in the group, or the rest of the group has to conform to that one player's choices.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 40):

I agree.  I've been playing for 35 years and never ran into these issues.  They result in discussions or arguments between characters sometimes, but there has always been a play around of some kind.

In reply to Fyrerain (msg # 42):

Personally, I see that as part of the challenge of the Paladin, and playing them well.

The Paladin class is, by definition, the champion of their diety. (Yes I'm deliberately leaving off non diety paladins, but this applies to them also. Simply switch the word "diety" out for "moral compass".) The Paladin is the literal embodiment of what is not only just, but what is pure. In some ways, more so than the Cleric because of their dedication and calling to that diety is literally soul deep.
They don't have the compromise that a lot of characters do. The class just doesn't have it. Yes, they are imperfect creatures, still trying to overcome that hesitancy, or the urge to strike out at a foe who is just barely in line. That doesn't stop them from knowing what is right for them to do. It might not be popular, but I also don't see a lot of Paladins caring about popularity. They care about what the deed that is noble of heart would have them do.

And so, you have this paragon of morality and uprightness who is literally going to be a challenge to the other characters. Not just in the hard stuff, but the easy stuff too. Personally, that's what I like about having a Paladin in the party. They fulfill the role of person who's going to step on toes because you (the character) know they're right, but it's not convenient, or as profitable, or whatever else the circumstance might be.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:02, Thu 10 Nov 2016.

In reply to Lord_Johnny (msg # 44):

LOL Yeah, it can make for great scenes -- finding ways to work around a paladin's morals can sometimes be highly entertaining. And which deity/whatever they follow can and should affect how they behave.

As I said, I've never had a problem other than the once, but when it stops the game (despite considerable IC and OOC discussion involved), then it's a problem.

But, not the same one as the OP presented -- no one involved was trying to tell the paladin's player how to play his paladin. We just wanted to find a compromise between the paladin wants and the rest of the group. That apparently wasn't an available option for that particular player's vision of his character. C'est la vie.

@Engine -- Interesting notion on why players choose to play paladins... might explain why I've never been one of 'em; I'm much too cynical. All the years I gamed growing up and since, I've only played a paladin once -- and that was on a challenge. We had a guy in our group who rarely played anything other than paladins, while I almost invariably played a thief. At some point, it came up he felt he could play a better thief than I could play a paladin, and thus my one and only paladin PC. :D
This message was last edited by the user at 20:19, Thu 10 Nov 2016.

In reply to Fyrerain (msg # 45):

Definitely something to that, but I also feel that there is a point that this falls on the GM. For instance, I do not let players in my game play an evil alignment. Not trying to inhibit them, but I also know that they would have a LOT of friction if someone plays any good alignment. And, honestly, part of it is that I'm a NG aligned person myself. It's HARD for me to not want to snatched up evil characters and shake em silly. So...in order to lessen the impact of that tendency on my enjoyment of running or the player's enjoyment of playing...no evil.

That's why, to an extent (and it is a finite extent) I don't have a problem with someone going "hey, that's evil. Your character wouldn't do that." There is a point at which, for me at least, I play a character that doesn't leave my mind. Yes, I can get into my character, but usually only so far. And when that point is reached, I need help occasionally. Because there are things my characters just wouldn't do because of their alignment (or class) that the frustrated player is more than willing to do. Frustrated player shouldn't break their own character.

That said...that's my perspective. Not everyone is going to agree (as clearly the OP does not), and that's okay. I don't think it's a huge issue though, because they're trying to help you not have a really bad session, and you need atonement. *shrug*

This discussion reminds me of Hacksaw Ridge by analogy.  If PFC Doss can make it in the military with his convictions despite being bullied and put in danger, it seems like a paladin can make it in a fantasy adventure without it tearing apart a game.

The only time I've ever had a problem with a paladin, was actually as a player in 2nd edition, when someone decided to charm the paladin (another PC was the charmer) into breaking their word.

Years ago. There was an article in The Dragon called "A Plethora Of Paladins". It discussed paladins of "other" alignments.

I have played a Lyran; a Paladin of Lawful Neutral alignment. His focus was The Law. I found him more difficult to play than a true paladin and I have played a bunch of paladins. He was constantly being put on the spot to give his word to "fix" something.

In reply to Grimmond (msg # 49):

My slant on a LN Paladin would be in the style of Judge Dredd. That could be fun I think.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:33, Fri 11 Nov 2016.

Not having played 2nd in a long time. I'm not sure if that Charm would have worked. Didn't think you could "Force" someone to do something that was completely against their nature.

I've dabbled in playing a Paladin several times back in the days of yore when I actually played AD&D. Paladins can be extremely fun. The worst part is that everyone assumed that paladins were forced to do extremely "stupid" things.

Had a GM that put one of my characters in a situation where it was a damned if I do damned if I don't. A village was being attacked/raided by vampires. However during the course of the investigation our party discovered that many in the village were corrupt. Do I save the corrupt village thus advancing evil? or do I let the vampire raids happen potentially harming innocents.

Answer was "simple" I vowed to protect the village for the day, as in day, not night ambiguous answer rule!. Used that time to get who I could out while protecting them from the corrupt (with the help of the other players) and let the Vampires ransack the corrupt that night. I stuck to my vow and still allowed evil to be destroyed.

I'd suggest looking at the Book of Exalted Deeds. Offers both nice mechanical options and RP outlooks for "good" characters. (Unlike the Book of Vile Darkness, which is a terrible book for creating cartoonish villains.)

I also love the Gray Guard PrC from Complete Scoundrel.

“How’re we supposed to see the pally comin’ when ’e wears armor blacker than ours?”
—Griv “Goblin Father” Chos, unfortunate cultist guard

You're not wrong, and is the intent of my original post. I'm hoping a little exposure can help guide these players and GMs to play better games.

Out of curiosity, it is reasonable to believe that players in a RPOL moderator's game are more likely to behave?

By the time I was a moderator, I already had a good group of players that I knew fairly well, and players from that group generally tend to be involved in all of my games.  So I can't really say if [random group] would be better behaved for a mod.  :)

Though I'm not sure why they would - in a game, all GMs have equal authority.

Latecomer with an anecdote - for entertainment purposes only. :)

Back in the mists of time, circa 1980, we had a FtF group (what else?) including a guy who liked to play Paladins. Yes, I think it reflected his RL morals.

Most of the rest of the group played evil characters (which probably reflected their RL morals, too, but we’ll say no more about that).

When Mr Paladin first chose to play LG, everyone took the pizza, but when he insisted, and his character started dictating what they should and shouldn’t do, they had their characters sneak up on him in the night, stab him in the back with a poisoned dagger, and steal his money.

He immediately rolled up another Paladin and they did the same thing.

Later, I created my one and only Paladin, just to play Devil’s Advocate, and mine got murdered, too. It became a rule amongst the group that if anyone played a Paladin, they would die.

Mr Paladin started playing Rangers.

Paladins seem to polarize opinions.