Elven Paladins

[Aniril_Telin]

A subject of some contention of late are Elven Paladins, my personal thoughts are that the Fellowship of the Forgotten Flower, which is an Elven Paladin Order is not possible with the current structure of character creation in NwN2 http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wik...llon_Larethian .

Elves following human gods to compensate for this is a more complicated RP that is possibly forced on the player due to mechanics. I personally would prefer to see them given the appropriate deity and allowed to join the faction they want to work with as Knights Errant from the Order to allow for them to more properly remain elves and yet still follow the Paladin class as they desire.

If it is possible to add Corellon to the Paladin deity list for elves that would possibly help resolve this. Moonbow is another slight possibility as a patron for Elven Paladins, however there is no specific documentation to support this I have found as yet.

[ThePaganKing]

I was always against Elven Paladins. If you follow the lore, elves are chaotic by nature, which doesn't really track with paladins. But then, I would never force someone from their own storyline and RP. Just be ready to be ridiculed by my Elven Bard he doesn't like any of the Holy Rollers.

[Satoshi]

There's a whole boatload of Lawful Good elves in Forgotten Realms lore. There's two entire Order of Corellon's Paladins, The Fellowship of the Forgotten Flower as linked above and the Swords of Evereska, as well as The Srinshee and almost every other baelnorn, Fflar Starbrow Melruth, and several of the historical Coronals of Cormanthor acted in ways that would mostly be assumed as Lawful Good. Elves are strongly individualist and self-reliant, but several of the ways time changed the elven kingdoms during and after the Crown Wars created a society that had a fundamental need for a Lawful society and military force. It also seems that Sun Elves are the most common elves inclined to become Lawful Good, with their descendant Wood Elves being distantly behind them. Moon Elves and the other rare breeds (Wild, Star, Desert, etc) seem to show exceedingly rare cases of Lawful alignment spectrum.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

Sun Elves:

Sun elves are firmly of the belief that they stand as the sole protectors and inheritors of Corellon's legacy in the Prime. Patient and deliberate in most of what they do, they demonstrate an orderly nature uncommon to most eladrin, preferring to master a skill before applying it rather than learning as they go. Rushing is out of the nature of sun elves, who, while less versatile than most races, have a mastery of whatever they apply themselves to. The only true exception to this is martial combat, which nearly all sun elves have some training in, regardless of how much and which most are eager to finish as quickly as possible once engaged.[6]

Being lawful is perfectly fine in sun elven society, and is even preferred.

That being said, the majority of moon, wood, and wild elves are chaotic. However, elven paladins do exist in rare organizations (Fellowship of the Forgotten Flower, Swords of Evereska, Knights of the Golden Wyrm, the Blade of Sahandrian, the Fey Staghorns, and the Swords of the Seldarine.)

edit: Damn you, Satoshi

[Zoberraz]

Don't we have the Divine Champion PrC to fill for our non-LG paladiny needs?

[Cornuto]

Don't we have the Divine Champion PrC to fill for our non-LG paladiny needs?

... Lol.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

That's a thing? I haven't seen a DC in....a long time.

[Satoshi]

Divine Champions are a more flexible and less potent paladin substitute, yes. It's definitely a flavor class that would fit the more chaotic-aligned champions, but it's decidedly not the same thing as a true-blue Paladin. And as it has been pointed out, Corellon does allow Paladins.

[Zoberraz]

*shrugs* If I wanted to make an elf paladin and that it was mechanically not supported, I'd likely go that way. I'm not very wowed by the Divine Champion and it's kind of deity neutral (I think?) but it has its slew of paladin-like feature. Seems like the closest you can get.

I mean, I've been getting away since forever with Maia calling herself a priestess of the elven god of archery when her class is Ranger. I mean, she has divine spellcasting so why not? I could see the same thing happening with a Elven Fighter/DC.

As long as you don't end up doing like a certain Divine Champion of Sune I remember whom went into melee with hordes of zombies scantily clad while dual wielding twin longswords and then whined about how easily she got herself killed... I think DCs can give a pretty good show of themselves.

I'm very for what they did with Paladins in 4th edition... but in 3rd it just doesn't seem to work well that way due to the alignment restriction thing. Though I think it makes less sense to change Corellon to appear to Lawful Good elves as an available deity for Paladin selection over allowing the use of CG paladins in that instance. No definite reason: just a feeling on my part.

[Aniril_Telin]

Liem is DC

[thaelis]

On the note of Elven alignment...some Elfblades (e.g. the Kingblade) were keyed to only be used by LG aligned Elves. Anyone not of that alignment who picked one up would die instantly (take 99d12 dmg or something ridiculous if i remember rightly).

Then, for the Elven King to be unable to worship Corellon Larethian would just be silly :S

So yes, I'd be all for Corellon allowing LG followers in order to avoid aforementioned silliness.

[Root]

Divine Champion, aka I Can't Believe It's Not Pure Fighter.

[GodBeastX]

Okay, I think this is a good thread to voice my opinion on this subject in general. The counter alignment race/class within guidelines.

I have no problem personally with Lawful elves, Good drow, good tieflings, half dragons, half ogres, etc.... when they are the exception.

What tends to happen is, everyone goes this path of "Snowflake" where they want to be unique and the exception becomes the norm and the norm the exception. Genius orcs everywhere who are tame, fallen paladins, etc, cause this to happen.

Should I care if people want to be snowflakes? Not really. Then why do I?

Well, before I cared, which some of you may remember from back in the day, we had this flood of these char types and it tended to sway player opinion as a whole far more than it likely would in a realistic setting. Nothing like having everybody on the server up in arms because people say "Drow are jerks and should be killed" because 90% of your players worship Eilistraee.

I'd rather people experience the typical setting than the atypical.

So yes, there are probably a "Buttload" of lawful elves in FR as Satoshi put it, but a buttload is relative. What's the elven populace of Faerun and what percent of that populace is likely to be lawful? If that % is 1% that means given the law of averages, 1 out of 100 players should be a lawful elf. Now if 90% of the elves are lawful, you got a problem. ***

At the end of the day, however, if we don't have a rule against it, then go ahead and do it. It's your char and your 50 bucks you spent on NWN2 to RP your dream so go ahead with your bad self. I'm just saying keep lore in mind when you establish a char.

***: I used 1% as an example and I truly don't know the %. I do know Elves tend to be frollickers and pick flowers like the damn fae hippies they are And FR has a lot of wierdnesses that aren't the case in other game worlds of D&D.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

Truthfully, I wouldn't mind paladins being able to select Corellon, and only Corellon as a paladin god.

I mean, halflings, gnomes, and dwarves have gods that qualify for paladins. Halflings. Gnomes. Dwarves.

[Kaizen]

Remember the last time a bunch of CE drow walked around? I sure do.


Yeeeeesh.

In any case, as for the 'exception to the rule', why is every single halfling an evil assassin on Sundren? I think there was like, one good one, Mitte Yikes ... the rest? Evil face stabbing children.

Aren't halflings supposed to be good as a whole? I don't even think they have an evil god in their pantheon.

Just pointing this out, because it appears as if people don't seem to care if the 'evil' one is the exception to the rule, only the 'good' or 'neutral' ones.