This was helpful. Some of the older D&D manuals made it seem like PCs should have some sort of cosmic attachment to their alignment, so that neutrals strove always to pair every good act with an evil one and lawfuls would prop any lawful dictator as long as the streets were kept clean and the pilgrimages ran on time. Ok, I exaggerate. But I still had difficulty with a character who would enthusiastically support any mediocre ruler out of principle. Generally speaking I suspect that it’s always been understood that the law favors the powerful, even if it is nonetheless preferable to anarchy.
Jophiel, Chronos, LHod and others pointed the way out. Just because you’re a righteous person and live by a code, doesn’t mean you sign off on all codes. Or even most codes. Sure you can be like Superman who would never collar Dr. Doom provided he kept a toehold within embassy grounds. (Diplomatic immunity, you know.) But there are other ways of being a Paladin, and the best strategy is to decide what sort of Paladin you are. Narrow the focus.
Wiki lists a number of guidelines for Paladins. A PC could skip these two altogether, right?
[ul]
[li]A Paladin cannot associate with any character who persistently commits acts which would cause the Paladin him/herself to Fall - notably Evil creatures.[/li][li]A Paladin holds stealth, subterfuge, attack from the rear, missile weapons and especially poison as weapons of last resort.[/li][/ul] The first one is pretty weird in settings that crawl with Rogues. (I admit I recall a stronger statement of this principle.) The second I suppose might be ok w.r.t. one on one duels, but is near-idiotic in warfare and highly questionable when a Paladin is operating with civilian party members. Also, missile weapons?!?!?!
Q: But do Paladins have to take on at least some of these sorts of tenets? Approximately how many? Or does/should the DM just toss that stuff out?
I wonder whether Paladins make decent NPCs. It seems like such characters could make decent plot devices.
I would expect a party paladin to not travel with evil companions. If someone wanted to play a paladin and someone else had their heart set on being evil, I’m not sure how I’d reconcile but that never came up for me. Honestly, evil PCs are usually a pain for about the same reason as paladins are: people use the alignment as an excuse for stupid actions (“I stab the barkeep in the face and steal all his gold and set the building on fire!”). Thieves are not necessarily evil – Haley is Chaotic Good, for instance – and a character can take up the profession for its obviously useful adventuring skill set rather than in hopes of robbing orphanages. Even the strict 1st edition rules allowed you to be neutral good (yet, oddly, not chaotic good).
I would consider the second on a case-by-case basis although I’m fine with the prohibition against poisons. But is a paladin working for an underground resistance expected to forgo any sort of stealth? I would generally expect a paladin to not participate in subterfuge, sabotage, etc but I wouldn’t consider those acts disqualifying if they could be defended by the player. Attacks from the rear and missile weapons would fall under a generally noble and knightly demeanor; again not immediately disqualifying but I wouldn’t expect them to be a regular part of the paladin’s arsenal.
Personally, I think that anyone playing a paladin ought to start by sitting down with the DM before the first session and working out exactly what that particular paladin’s code is, and then following that code. Which need not be exactly the same as the standard paladin code.
Well, the real reason Superman doesn’t arrest Dr. Doom is that they’re published by two different companies. But Captain America generally would feel compelled to respect Dr. Doom’s diplomatic immunity (in the stories where diplomatic immunity is a thing that applies to Dr. Doom).
Sounds like the wiki you’re referring to is drawing from 1st Edition rules. When paladins were first introduced, they were significantly more powerful than other player classes, so they had a bunch of restrictions piled on them to balance them out - “no missile weapons or intelligent military tactics” were part of those restrictions. There was also an absurdly specific limit on how many magic items a paladin could own. Later editions balanced the classes better, so some of these restrictions were eased or removed. Generally, you still have to be Lawful Good, and violating your alignment would cost you most of your paladin abilities until you atoned, but the trend was to letting a paladin’s specific creed be determined by setting, not by mechanics. I was in a campaign a while back where I played a Paladin of the goddess of art, beauty, and love. Part of my paladin code was that I protect works of art, and that I spend a portion of my time and money creating beautiful art myself. But my deity didn’t particularly care if I used a crossbow to shoot an orc.
Shouldn’t O-Chul have a weapon or is he a monk-style fighter? I really don’t remember.
The original 1st ed rules weren’t so bad, although they did indeed limit your magic items. It mainly got bonkers when the Unearthed Arcana came out with the Cavalier class (which was invented by a rules lawyer on acid) and paladins were shoved into that as a sub-class. Most of the “Can’t attack from behind, can’t consort with commoners, have to ‘bravely’ charge the ancient red dragon head on – when you’re level four, etc” nonsense came from that abomination.
Yeah, I played AD&D back in the day. And it was hard to roll a character that had the stats to be a paladin. But if you could do it, it was awesome. But not crazy over-powered, given the stats. And the restrictions were reasonable, mostly about being good and not using poison. Magic items weren’t as common back then (at least, not where I was playing) and paladins get some built-in magic, so that wasn’t a big deal.
I always liked the official write-up of King Arthur: yeah, he’s a paladin, and there are huge limits on paladins owning stuff – but he doesn’t own that stuff; the kingdom owns it. <beat> Anyway, “the kingdom” is everyone who acts like he owns everything, and plenty of those guys are armor-plated killers, so don’t get cute.
I have to say, I’m really impressed at how the Giant can have dozens of fully-fleshed out characters and it almost never feels like the cast is crowded or one-dimensional or I’ve forgotten who someone is. That is some superb storytelling.
I’m embarrased to clarify this, but in the joint comic book Superman and Spiderman, “Doom manages to make it back to the Latverian Embassy, where he enjoys diplomatic immunity, seconds before Superman catches up with him.” How the hell I recalled that or even knew about it escapes me. I think it made it to a trade paperback that I flipped through in a bookstore. Or not. smack:smack:
Part of the problem I think was that 1st ed D&D emerged from the war game genre. It was only later that folks figured out that RPGs were actually a form of collaborative storytelling. I personally found the game setup fascinating though I didn’t quite know what to make of it, until I read an explanation on the internet during the early 1990s.
I loved playing them because of the challenge to play them well, being just irritating enough to get the flavor but not so much that the other players are annoyed. The best one was when I got petrified and everyone was ecstatic, because I was shut up. And there was some discussion about leaving me that way for a few days. Then someone asked the really important question, “Where is the map we need to complete the mission?” You got a kender in the party, where do you think the map is?
I knew exactly what you were referring to without even thinking about it. And I know it because my copy of the original is laying across my living room, not 20 feet away, right now.
But Captain America generally would feel compelled to respect Dr. Doom’s diplomatic immunity (in the stories where diplomatic immunity is a thing that applies to Dr. Doom).
smack: