Class Review: Paladin

[Dragor]

Class Review: Paladin

NWN Definition: “Paladins take their adventures seriously, and even a mundane mission is, in the heart of the paladin, a personal test - an opportunity to demonstrate bravery, to learn tactics, and to do good in the world. Divine power protects these warriors of virtue, warding off harm, protecting them from disease, healing them and their allies, and guarding against fear. Finally, a paladin can use this power to destroy evil. Even a novice paladin can detect evil, and more experienced paladins can smite evil foes and turn away undead. Many of the paladin's special abilities also benefit from a high charisma score.”

FRwiki Definition: “A paladin is a holy crusader, crusading in the name of his or her deity, and a divine spellcaster. Though paladins are typically considered lawful good, evil paladins and those of non-lawful alignments can exist, though all paladins must be of the exact alignment of their patron deity. All paladins are expected to be a paragon of their alignment and a model for others of their faith.”

http://www.sundren.org/wiki/index.php?title=Paladin
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Paladin

MY VIEW

A paladin experiences a calling from a deity or deity like force to serve that deity’s ends. A paladin’s views and actions towards others are codified through the tenants of whichever order they belong to.

A paladin is a paladin, no matter how many other levels of another class they take, unless the paladin “falls”.

Paladin orders also limit what a paladin can multiclass and keep advancing as a paladin.

As with all the other religious oriented classes it is really easy to see when someone did not put any research into building their paladin and annoys me to no end.

I’ve decided to risk creating a firestorm by doing a short review like this on all the base and PrC classes available on Sundren and ask for the communities input on anything related to that class such as RP tactics, personal views, lore tidbits, and character build strategies.
Keep it clean, thanks.

[Doubtful]

Ah, the Paladin.

Personally I'm a great fan of paladins and enjoy playing them, there is a lot of room for interpretation of the class and the various deific orders. The slew of interesting PrC classes available show just how versatile the class actually is.

It is, unfortunately, the no.1 class for "You're not playing it right"

One thing I do like to see from players is what vows their paladin has taken, knowing exactly what oaths the paladin has taken (in addition to the standard ones) is infinitely helpful.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Im sure there should be a roguethree comment popping up anytime soon. I like them conceptually but as you and doubtful have said its a shame when people dont look into what tenents of their faith may need roleplaying 'above' their vows as a paladin ~ which essentially is what marks one paladin order from another.

[Mournas]

Paladins are one of my most favorite classes. Unfortunately there are not many places for Paladins other than the Triumvirate in Sundren. Which makes them a seriously boring choice, IMO, to play.

[Dragor]

Paladins are one of my most favorite classes. Unfortunately there are not many places for Paladins other than the Triumvirate in Sundren. Which makes them a seriously boring choice, IMO, to play.

The most fun I've had playing a charachter on this server was as a paladin who was not a member of any faction. Factions do not make charachters fun, interaction makes charachters fun.

[Torgar]

I have another post telling of my love of Paladins, I will say it again here: I love paladins. Favorite RP class in all of DnD, followed right at the heels by bards. It fills me with cringing, and also laughter, when I see a paladin played like just a LG fighter with some divine abilities. A paladin should believe their gods way of things is always right, because that's what their god believes, so that's what his holy warriors should. I like Paladins being uptight @$$holes, because they are the control group the alignment system, since they can only be one of the nine. Again, I love paladins, despite how often my characters are actually imprisoned or attacked by them. Just means they are doing things right, if my actions caused them to stop me from making them fall

[Mournas]

FRwiki Definition: “A paladin is a holy crusader, crusading in the name of his or her deity, and a divine spellcaster. Though paladins are typically considered lawful good, evil paladins and those of non-lawful alignments can exist, though all paladins must be of the exact alignment of their patron deity. All paladins are expected to be a paragon of their alignment and a model for others of their faith.”

I also think this is the worst idea that WotC has ever come up with in concerns to Paladins.

[Tamha]

I also think this is the worst idea that WotC has ever come up with in concerns to Paladins.

You mean the "Paladin of Freedom" or "Paladin of Tyranny" and so forth? I can understand a desire for alignments besides LG to have (un)holy crusaders, but I have to say it kind of cheapens the Paladin experience if you can get the cool powers with any alignment at level 1. Which is why the Blackguard and Divine Crusader PrC's exist, so that other alignments can get similar powers once they got some base levels under their belt. Paladins have to work hard to keep their powers by being the most righteous, everyone else has to work to earn those types of powers through experience.

[Twisted-Indoctrine]

That's the 4th edition interpretation on FRwiki, isn't it? 3rd and 3.5 never truly supported anything but Lawful Good paladin IIRC. 4th edition seems alien to me as I haven't played it (pathfinder>>>4th ed) so I don't know if it's true as a statement but they seem to have done away with the blackguard in favour of what would traditionally be "Evil paladins". The niche for that sort of thing has always been there, thus the black guard in the first place, it's just 4th ed seems to have gone about it more simply than 3rd where such a thing was a prestige class and so on and so forth, in 4th it's a baseline class sort of deal.

In any event yes, paladins are always kind of cool to see. For my part I just can't seem to build one mechanically well enough to stick with (mostly because they're multi-stat dependents and that conflicts with my STRENGTH IS EVERYTHING mentality), but they do become rather potent when they press into higher levels especially with one handed weapons and shields as they gain rather significant static bonuses through magic and divine might allowing them to be formidable shield bearers. They just feel a little too sluggish off the start for me to stick with, and also I can't help but eye roll at the gods in Faerun. But I certainly respect those who can fit that bill, they're certainly one of the more interesting classes.

[Torgar]

Actually Twisted, 3.5 did. Within the book "Unearthed Arcana", there are examples of CG,LE, and CE paladins. Now, although I don't really agree with the CG and CE versions, I do actually fully agree with the LE one, because in the end, he probably would not be that much different from the LG one. I suppose my best example for why this is would be for those of us familiar with the "Dragonlance" campaign setting's Knights of Solamnia and Knights of Takhesis. One order was LG knights, the other LE knights, but both orders actually possessed many of the same codes of conduct. I.E. Treatment of prisoners, treatment of children and women who are noncombatants, fighting others honorably. Now, paladins within the knights of solamnia were indeed very rare, in fact the main prestige, Knight of the crown, was ten levels of a fighter prestige that eventually gave you paladin abilities such as divine grace and fear immunity and so forth.

Regardless, I actually would fully endorse something in the nature of getting rid of Blackguard, remaking as a LE paladin, and expanding it to full 20 levels on the server, if for no other reason then it would give the side of evil the unholy champion who is every bit as powerful in a fight against a good guy as a paladin is against an evil one. Heck, even keep the name, because it sounds cool. But, that's just a personal opinion, I know many would rather just get rid of both classes, and that's cool too. I don't agree, but not agreeing isn't me saying they are wrong.

Gah, got off topic. I was just supposed to point out that 3.5 DnD did in fact have rules for the different aligned paladins. I did that. Think I'll stop now before I get off topic again.

[Doubtful]

Heh, it's a good point. Don't worry about a bit of diversion.

I'd be happy to see the Blackguard class dragged behind the gas tanks and shot in favour of having the 4 paladin variants introduced.

I'd expect a backlash though.

[roguethree]

The only variant I care to see added is the true anti-paladin: The Paladin of Tyranny.

The storybook foes of a paladin are the demon, the dragon, and the anti-paladin. I would love, love a sophisticated antagonist with powers similar to mine to clash with. An evil with honor and purpose, who's pretty like me.

Star-crossed best friends . . .

[Thief Of Navarre]

I think r3 bashed me about LE paladins before; Yet I stand by my right to say something stupid. I dont see anything conceptually wrong with paladins of differing alignments.

Edit* And he's beat me to the punch.

[Kaizen]

The only variant I care to see added is the true anti-paladin: The Paladin of Tyranny.

The storybook foes of a paladin are the demon, the dragon, and the anti-paladin. I would love, love a sophisticated antagonist with powers similar to mine to clash with. An evil with honor and purpose, who's pretty like me.

Star-crossed best friends . . .

I'll be your huckleberry.

Seriously, evil paladins is an evil train I could and would totally ride.

As of now, the only thing I can think of is ... 6 fighter/4 divine champion/10 blackguard. But that's laughable. Maybe 6 fighter/4 blackguard/10 divine champion.

Nope, still laughable. But most fun to roleplay, no doubt.

[Thief Of Navarre]

It goes Bard/blackguard and you can charm Dain with how evil and pretty you are. They may be immune to fear but they arnt immune to mind effecting spells (and besides as a bard your dispell magic trumps his protection from evil). You may keep him as your sex slave for cl*6 Seconds.