Oh, I definetly agree that there is more than one way to play a paladin, which is great for an RPG. The trouble is that I've seen in a few games I've played, and often heard of stories where the DM railroaded a paladin into behaving a certain way by threatening to revoke his powers. And while their existed guidence for some of the other 3.5 classes like clerics, barbarians, and druids (to name a few) to lose their class powers you just don't hear about it often if at all.
The text you bolded up there needs a little clarification I think. A paladin can choose to excel in those roles, but I would argue that it's not my primary role. Diplomat in this case refers to a political envoy (though religious works too) seeking negotiations. I can certainly do that, but so can some other non-champion of the faith. Unless you're expecting a lot of trouble, it's a waste of resource. And sending a paladin in my opinion sends the same message as a carrier battlegroup escort: "negotiations are going to go my way, or else." It sounds brutal, but what distinguishs a paladin in this case is that he follows a code of conduct and won't compromise on it.
I think it's a similar case for 'leader of the faith.' Yeah I'm a pretty good example of my faith, and we all know that leading by example is pretty a great way to do it, but again it's misplaced resources. To paraphrase something from Moon's The Deed of Paksanarrion, "Paladins go into a place were things havent been right in decades. They go and right the wrongs and free the oppressed and then they leave. It's the Marshals [clerics] who remain and tend to the faithful." My paladin might lead a prayer service or two while on quest, or he might teach Sunday School at the monastary in between quests, but his job isn't to stay in one place and lead the flock.
I agree that my Chaladins in particular will have the diplomacy skill and use it in equal measures to force. My chaladins will usually feature a strong leader element to them in all the healing and buffing that the do for the party. I agree that paladins do these things and do them well, but I'll argue that what separates paladins from other classes is that they do these things in pursuit of the specific goals of their faith, and not as their primary job.
I think you are focusing too much on mechanics of where your power comes from. You are trusted to make decisions for your god, and trusted that you are going to try and stay as close as possible to what the god would want you to do. If you make a choice that is not in keeping with your gods commands, your powers should not suddenly disapear. Playing it this ways keeps the DM from pressing the powers off button, because you can say that from your characters perspective, you believe what you are doing is right. The DM can say this is probably not what your god wants, and if that happens enough then maybe you'll have some confrontation with a messanger from your god, or a terrible vision or something. Otherwise you can end up debating with your DM over every action. But by putting in such strict rules, it railroads your character into only being able to do very specific actions. You are a person with complex goals and emotions, and even as a ritious knight of truth and justice, you should allow yourself the room to slip up, otherwise you're just not human.
Also, for the love of god don't play the type of paladin that will try and wade into 200 rampaging orcs to rescue one girl. When people play paladin they have a tendency to do things like that, and as a real person, even if you knew you had divinely inspired powers, you're not going to seriousy consider an action that you know is going to kill you. Real people file that under the "last resort" tab, it's not your plan A. Being couragous doesn't mean being fearless, fear makes us human.
Don't try and force other characters based on what you believe. If thats what your god wanted, then he would use his godly power to stop them himself. Free will exists for a reason. Your job is to lead by example and offer words of wisdom that would disuade them, not to try and make the rules and set the punishments. This is even more true in a world where it is accepted that there are many gods.
I think it's a similar case for 'leader of the faith.' Yeah I'm a pretty good example of my faith, and we all know that leading by example is pretty a great way to do it, but again it's misplaced resources. To paraphrase something from Moon's The Deed of Paksanarrion, "Paladins go into a place were things havent been right in decades. They go and right the wrongs and free the oppressed and then they leave. It's the Marshals [clerics] who remain and tend to the faithful." My paladin might lead a prayer service or two while on quest, or he might teach Sunday School at the monastary in between quests, but his job isn't to stay in one place and lead the flock.
I agree that my Chaladins in particular will have the diplomacy skill and use it in equal measures to force. My chaladins will usually feature a strong leader element to them in all the healing and buffing that the do for the party. I agree that paladins do these things and do them well, but I'll argue that what separates paladins from other classes is that they do these things in pursuit of the specific goals of their faith, and not as their primary job.
Thank you for the clarification not_a_tame_lion. When I thought of leader of the faith, I was thinking more of setting an example than running a church. So now that you've clarified it it seems that we agree more on this than I thought.
As a side note, it's kind of ironic to me that the strength based paladin is usually not nearly as intimidating as a charisma based paladin. I'm pretty sure that there are magic items and feats that let a PC use St. instead of Cha. for intimidate checks, but it's kind of a pain that you have to burn resources to do so.
This thread is interesting because the OP seems to really love all the things I hated about 3.5e Paladins. I understand the desire for your character to have a rigid code, although IMHO it's MUCH more interesting over the long term if that code is at least somewhat different from "Lawful Good, Blah Blah Blah Honor and Courage." Everyone's seen that character before, and everyone knows just how he'll act. But a Paladin of Erathis? Corellon? Ioun? Sehanine? That character may have an equally rigid code along lines you haven't tried roleplaying before, and that your group isn't used to seeing. That character has a chance to really be his or her own person while striving to live up for the appropriate godly ideal.
Regardless of what your code is, I would strongly recommend it being self-enforced (with storyline nudges from your DM where appropriate, and fluff consequences when they make sense), if only for the reason others have cited: that way, you'll never have to waste a second of the table's time discussing how an action does or doesn't life up to your Code and how it affects play. And it's perfectly reasonable for you to roleplay whatever repentance your character deems necessary to restore his god's favor, but for the sake of the table, please keep the penalties out of combat, and don't drag it into a long story arc.
I guess that's my real complaint with the 3.5e, over-the-top-lawful-good, rules-mandated Paladin concept. Just the process of his being a paladin and having to do all his special things and argue about what his friends are allowed to do in front of him forces one player to steal the spotlight a significant amount of the time to deal with all the baggage that comes from his class. If it's handled poorly, the rest of the players start feeling like the Paladin's side plot, and that's a pretty lame thing to do to your table.
The best way to avoid the spotlight aspect is to take full responsibility for fitting your Paladin and his divine mandate into the group's larger story. It doesn't take a special, weirdly-specific relationship with your DM that no other player at the table gets to have a full character with a rich, engaging story--even one who has strong moral limitations of whatever kind. Don't expect or ask your DM to spend time policing you, or your fellow players to spend time sitting and listening to you be policed.
I've been in a play-by-post 4e game for the last several months, and it's been a great exercise for giving my character depth without forcing any aspect of the story to revolve around him. The setting is a moderately-fantasy-ized version of late 16th century Earth (with much more advanced trade, travel and communication due to the existence of magic, etc), and halflings exist in it in place of various pygmy tribes across the planet. So I refluffed an Iron Soul Monk into a pygmy elephant hunter who draws power from the spirits of his ancestors. With in-combat description of how his ancestors' gifts manifest, out-of-combat description of his personal rituals and meditation, and dialogue that hints at his relationship with his power and its sources, I have a complex backstory to my character's abilities that plays out continuously, but nobody but me has to spend any time adjudicating, acknowledging, or helping create that.
If you'd like more ways to have your god's favor visible in the story without making your DM do it, try refluffing your magic items as boons from your god. My Monk is doing something similar: his Goblin Totem Dagger is fluffed as an expression of his ancestors' gifts and his experience taking down large enemies. His Rain of Hammers Ki Focus is his own mother's skull hanging on a rope from his belt, with two chunks of obsidian in its eyes that glow when he takes a life and activates the item. He's even carrying around an old leather strap that belonged to his grandfather, and ritually wraps it around his hand and arm as part of his morning meditation. It's not a magic item yet, although he believes it grants him power, but next time I get to choose a magic item as a quest reward, it's going to manifest into a +1 Siberys Shard of the Mage to give him a damage bonus. Most of my party has somewhat gone this route, and it adds an interesting tone to the campaign. A Paladin wanting to express his god's favor could get a lot of mileage out of that.
Anyway, hopefully some of that wall of text was helpful. I got a bit long-winded, it seems.
for all your lawful good paladin needs, see Sturm Brightblade from Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Winter's Night. He's probably the best paladin ever.
I read a good article on that. If you google how to play a dnd paladin i think you might find it.
Always remember "My honor is my life!"
My dad also taught me something interesting about paladins. He said that originally everyone saw them as weak and that they weren't allowed to kill because they needed to show mercy. But, upon capturing 20 orcs, my dad killed all but three of them or so. He said this was merciful because they were evil and could only be evil. By allowing them to live, he risked them returning to raid the town again. Therefore, his task as a protector was to kill all 20 of them. He showed mercy by leaving 3 so that they could return to their tribe and speak of how they should no longer raid that place. You can be tough and gritty as a paladin, just remember duty and honor.
as for the abilities, you can come up with whatever you like of course, but i like to think of the marking abilities as the paladin saluting his enemies, calling them to meet him in battle.
My favourite class is the chaladin. I love the lawful good steriotype and I love roleplaying it. I was just wondering if you could give me any tips n' tricks about roleplaying this class. What do you do to make your Paladin memorable, what are your "roleplaying" rules?
Everthing I know about roleplaying a Paladin is what I've read from 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I actually asked my DM to make some of it actual rules and not just flavour. For example:
If I break my vows I lose my powers: I know right and wrong isn't as set in stone in 4e as it was in 3.5, but it make my steriotype a bit more acceptable. It makes him more vulnerable and means that the other players understand my roleplaying. Sometimes when playing a "I only do good"-character the other players might think that I think Im better then they are. Sometimes it makes them feel a bit guilty when doing something more unaligned, that my paladin always has to come with a "You must do what's right"-speech. This way I can always just say "I'm sorry, I can't take part in this, even if it's the smart thing to do, I made a vow".
This happened to me when we cought a spy that eventually begged for mercy. My team wanted to kill him to make sure he wouldn't backstab us later, but my paladin thought it was evil and dishonest. I know as a player that the DM would love to use that spy to the BBEG's advantage, but my paladin couldn't do it. We actually had an argument about this. Eventually our Ranger killed him in a quick and painless manner while my paladin turned his back. A month later I read about the alignment restrictions in Pathfinder and I fell in love "so THAT'S why!"
You don't need the DM to take his powers away for your character for him to be able to stand up for what he believes in. You can roleplay losing access to divine powers without some other agent enforcing it.
If your character does something that troubles his conscience so much that he believes his god has forsaken him, or that he's lost the right to channel divine power, stop using paladin powers that you consider to be granted by his god. Use melee basic attacks in place of your divine attacks. If a power seems outside of the scope of human ability to you, abstain from using it. Decide what your character can and can't do without his holy magic, and what he has to do to atone, and go do it. Once he has atoned, use your divinely granted powers again.
That comes with some responsibility. While it's on your friends to be considerate of your character's binding oaths and to play characters that can work with your character without frequent disagreements over how to proceed, it's on you not to use those oaths as a means of browbeating them and restricting their behavior so frequently that it gets in the way of plot advancement, or prevents them from playing their characters and having fun. The other characters in your group aren't bound to your paladin's oaths, and it's your responsibility to play a character that is relatively compatible with the other characters in the party. If you find that the party frequently ditches your character so they can "get things done," it's time to start questioning why those people are adventuring together.
My powers are a boon of a divine entity, and I must pray to refill my strength. In 3.5 clerics have to pray once a day to regain their spells. I do the same thing, it reminds me and the group that I am not a wizard or a sorcerer, my powers are borrowed and I can channel that power as long as I do what's right or in the spirit of my deity.
Definitely keep doing it, then!
I need some help roleplaying some of the Paladin's game mechanics, such as Divine Sanction and Divine Challenge. How do these things work, lore wise?
In this edition, mechanics and narration are discrete, separate concerns. Lorewise, they work however you want them to. If you want a flight of deva to descend upon the battlefield and grant a power's effect and the DM allows it, that's how it happens. If a shaft of sunlight pierces the gloom and comes to rest on your target's forehead and the DM allows it, that's how it happens. That's what we call "fluff," and it happens independant of the mechanics of a power. That, ideally, is the part of the story over which you have complete control as the player of that character. If you have a power that heals an ally for 5 HP, you can narrate that as holy light enveloping the target and invigorating her, tiny little angellic beings the size of bumblebees sewing wounds shut (with a faint aroma of lemons filling the air,) or even your character barking, "walk it off, Nancy!" at the target. It's up to you!
For example that encounter power that sanctions all enemies in close burst 3, how does that work? Is this an interpretation of smite from Pathfinder? If so can I say that it's the power of my god, and can only be channeled against those who are evil or oppose the will of my deity?
All enemies in the burst are sanctioned. You can say that it's the power of your god, or the energy that suffuses all things in the universe, or something in their bad guy DNA that is allergic to a pheromone you secrete, as explained above. That's fluff. Target eligibility, that is, who the effect hits, is a matter of mechanics - we call that "crunch." Crunch happens as listed on the power unless your DM rules otherwise. So if the target line of the power says "enemies in burst," then every character in the burst that is considered an enemy (that is, DM controlled NPCs that are hostile unless the DM rules otherwise) is subject to the effect. If the power says "creatures in burst," then everyone in the burst, regardless of religious affiliation, is subject to the power's effect. If you have a power that targets all creatures, but you want to narrate it as only affecting enemies of the faith, it is your burden as a player to only use that effect when the only eligible targets are enemies of the faith.
"When Friday comes, we'll all call rats fish." D&D Outsider
I agree that the whole thing that seperates the divine from others is the divine connection, that you power is drawn from a God. The best example of what drawing on divine power is like is Lady of Poison. Its not like saying a few hail mary's and you have a bunch of powers you can unleash by saying a word, like a voice activated spell like you might with a wizard or Warlock. It deeper then that. When you pray you open your soul up to the deity, you don't just have magic words appear in your head. You feel thier presence within yourself, your soul touches thiers and you feel thier love, wisdom, power, essence. And its not just when you pray for powers, thier presence is always there, you can shut you eyes and feel thier light and warmth. Warlocks get thier power from other beings, but they'll never know that sort of intimacy. Primal uses will understand that better then others, with perhaps Shamans the only ones that really get that sort of connection with a higher power.
As to Paladin code it has to have some flexiblity. Not all Lawful Gods see eye to eye on all issues and not all Paladin's are cook cutters of each other. I'm not just talking about symbolisms either.
One way to play the lawful good Paladin would be to give him a defense lawyer history. Maybe he acted as the defense of accused criminals in church trials, giving him more of a connection and sympathy for criminal elements, and more a taste for leancy.
Another Lawful Good Paladin might believe in the death penalty, they might regret the nessecity, but deside that it is the law and it is needed to protect the innocent. That sort would allow the ranger to kill the spy, but only after as fair a trial as possible.
Another Lawful Paladin might actually be a Che type, that beleaves that the power of law resides with the people, not the unelected elites. That Paladin still believes in the state and the rule of law, laws to contain the abuses of power by the elited, but one ruled by the people and that the laws of Kings are false laws.
Even the approach they take to dealing with others can vary depending on personality. One can be the typical nagging knight, another might use humour and charm to talk people to see the morally right choice, another might use his wits to lead others to what he believes is right, in a way that they believed it was thier idea the whole time. As to violations of code, minor infractions should not lead to loss of powers, but maybe a lesser punishment, maybe one not represented by mechanics. A cleric of Bhaal was punish by his god with warts in one novel. Punishment should fit the crime.
While old-E (and novels based on old-E) used that approach, divine-power characters in 4E do not have a direct connection to a god, nor are they granted their power directly by a god. There doesn't even need to be a god in existence for a divine-power character to operate. They do tap the power of the Astral Sea in some fashion, but that's a capability granted to them by their rites of investiture, which are entirely a mortal affair.
Yes, a divine-source character usually (though not always) wields that power in the name of a god (or gods, or some similar concept), but it's entirely up to their own conscience how they go about doing so.
Sure, the character might believe that they're getting instructions straight from on high, but they don't actually have any more of a hotline to divinity than anyone else.
Read the Griffin Brotherhood. The connection is still thier, just less interference in its use and more hinting then spelling out directly what the God wants you to do.
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