Can Cerilia handle: The plethora of paladins revisited!!

Dungeons & Dragons The Royal Library
1

:rolleyes:

The plethora of paladins revisited!!

In a recent thread I read some DM’s have taken a view that only the L/G deities (oh and they mention L/N) can have the Paladin Holy Warriors. I am afraid I can’t support that viewpoint. In the game there is room for Paladin/Holy Warriors for every alignment and diety. It makes the class much more available for those who don’t like the alignment based restrictions that the L/G Paladin imposes.

In the games I have run I have allowed PC’s to chose from all alignments to find a Paladin/Holy Warrior (of 1 Faith) to play. The background material comes from the Dragon Magazine July 1980 for the Anti Paladin. (The first to introduce the non L/G type of paladin). It was carried on further in the Dragon Magazine February 1986 with the “A Plethora of Paladins” which supplied a nice set of those Paladin/Holy Warriors of the Faith that I mentioned. (I reworked some of the material to have them capable of using some of the arch typical Paladin Skills like healing touch, holy swords, and special mounts.

Those other paladins are: (L/N Lyan; L/E Illrigger; N/G Myrikhan; T/N Paramander; N/E Arrikhan; C/G Garath; C/N Fantra). Now the forces of the Druids and nature can have a Paladin of their own to defend their belief set.

The idea offers a certain flavor of adventure hooks for the Paladin conflicts that are bound to arise as the Holy Warriors of one deity square off against their nemesis deity’s forces. I has all sorts of campaign implications too if you place the alignment/deity chosen portfolio into play. What will the forces of bane with their Illrigger Paladins come into contact with the forces of Chanteau and her Myikhan Paladins meet. Maybe while the Banites are pillaging a simple farming community!!! (The outrage!!!).

It would be a slugfest and should our party run willy nilly into such a fray the consequences could well embroil them into the situation…..oooooooooo……the painnnnn……the hurting!!!

Not a bad idea really. Keeps those goody two shoe paladins in the place, and the next time the paladin sees that glowing blade that seems to resist magic detection that ol’ L/G Paladin might not be so eager to just go over and pick it up. (They always get that mine, mine, mine…..look in their eyes too).

So can your game handle this idea???

Later

:rolleyes:

2

A Druid is a paladin of nature, really. Paladins need extremes to espouse - the four radical alignments are conceivable, but not the four non-True neutral ones though.

3

Would this be like the variant paladins contained in the revised Chap 1 of the BRCS?

Avani (LN)
Cuircean (CG)
Nesirie (NG)

Each paladin now has a specific code of conduct that is more alignement (and deity philosophy based) then the generic one in the PHB.

3.5 UA also has paladins of different alignments as a variant too.

4

Well, I meant just standard paladins with a slight alignment and ethos change don’t really work. Obviously, the paladins of Nesirie and Cuiraécen work much better as customised “special agents” of their respective gods, than just ripped-off paladins (hence the custom classes in the BRCS).

That’s why I’m in favour of the Unearthed Arcana variants, although I refer to them as the Paladin (LG), Liberator (CG), Infernal (LE) and Havok (CE).

5

Personally, I don’t use paladins in my games – they’re multiclassed fighter/clerics (or cleric/rogues for Eloele or cleric/bards for Laerme or cleric/rangers for Erik or…) – or the alignment system, for that matter. However, for the sake of discussion, it seems to me that paladins’ extreme commitment to a particular moral code lends itself much better to the other four (non-TN) alignments: LN, CN, NG and NE. The reason is that much of the endless wrangling over “is my paladin allowed to do this?” arises from instances where the two alignment halves lead to opposite conclusions – for example, when the good thing to do and the lawful thing to do are different. However, a paladin of one of the other alignment combinations doesn’t have to worry about this: a LN paladin always does the lawful thing, and a NG paladin always does the good thing. That’s why I think of those four as more extreme than the mixed four in the corners.

Ryan

6

I see pleny of space for paladins in most BR campaigns, and in most religions. To make sense of it, one must see religions as embodying theologies, and not look at the construct of alignment, and as has ably been pointed out, one can readily have “lawfull good” religions at odds, and even different sects of the same religion at odds. To give a historical example, the aggressive actions of the Teutonic knights against their fellow catholic Poles from the mid to late 14th century onward.

As to only one palladin per a religion, I don’t think this makes much sense in a campaign setting devoted to politics - sure, a galahad is sensible in the artificial construct of Arthurian tales, but had no place in any real medieval kingdom. As to the question of whether there would be enough people to have paladins in any numbers - historically, thousands of European knights and gentlemen, gifted with land, and being on the top of the social structure, set aside their rank and privilege to become Templars, Hospitalers, Schwertbruder, Knights of Santiago, knights of Catelevera (sp?), as well as numbers of other oders of what were essentially monk-knights, under very rigid discipline, and giving up their accustomed comforts.

The game envisions units of paladins of Haelyn, etc, available, on the order of companies of 200 men. Perhaps this can represent 1 knight and 2 brother-seargents, if you are comfortable with lower numbers of actual paladins, but it still allows for hundreds of them. Personally, I am more comfortable with this, as are our players, and it gives a sense of depth to our campaign to have in essence military orders modeled on the same general idea of actual military orders - in the case of the Hospitalers, that survived into the Early MOdern era as a military order, and in their function of running hospitals, to this very day.

7

I’m inclined to see more paladins than Ryan (perhaps this depends what a paladin is), but even I don’t see whole units of paladins. (Frankly I generally don’t see whole units of fighters either, so that may be telling).

Let’s assume the Western Imperial Temple raises an elite unit called Knights of Haelyn. I would imagine perhaps 50 infantry with and average level of 4, or 25 horsemen with an average level of 4. So given the assumption of 25 or 50 men, I’d see maybe 2x Warrior 4, 2x Fighter 4, and one paladin or cleric in an informal leadership role, for groups of five that I would replicate five times for the mounted knights and ten times for the unmounted knights. Two of the informal leaders would instead be formal leaders, perhaps a 6th and a 7th level paladin or cleric (one of each?).

I figure the major temples of Haelyn could each field one unit like this.

8

I admit that my perceptions are shaped strongly by the 1st and 2nd edition rules, in which paladins required such high ability scores that only about one person in a thousand (rolling 3d6 six times) could qualify. If we toss that, then sure, they can be everywhere. However, since I find them both insufferable roleplaying headaches and mechanically unnecessary given free multiclassing, I see no reason at all to keep them in 3rd ed.

Ryan

9

He’s certainly the most appealing one of the sons in the Lion In Winter portrayal…

10

:rolleyes:

Here is some added examples and information about the idea that I have used during the years.

First my personal experiences with the variation in my time as DM and PC.

I have played an Paramander of Hermes (Greek Mythos). He had a few thiefly powers in addition to the some of the paladin ones. I have also had two players chose to play these paladin variations. One played an Illrigger of Grumsh (Yes an orc Paladin) & the other played a Fantra of Dionyous…He didn’t last long…he liked to worship his god by drinking just a weeeeee bit too much.

Secondly here are how I percieve some of the variations that would occur in the use of the plethora of paladins ideas.

So lets go a step further here with the paladin powers. What powers would be universal, and which would be changed by alignment/faith. (and how).

  1. All stats limitations remain the same.

  2. Races Allowed could vary due to diety choice…such as the Illrigger of Grumush above.

  3. Detect Evil…becomes detect opposite alignments for good/evils and for neutrals they can distinguish both.

  4. Save bonus +2 remains

  5. Immune to all diseases is a deity based power so they can keep it.

  6. Aura’s of protection remain vs alignments not their own.

  7. Holy swords for all!!!

Turn undead, devils, demons…the article addresses this, but this could also be where there is a little DM complication.

First the undead turning can be made into controlling by the Evil aligned paladins. For the neutrals there would be NO turning for T/N, and all others neutrals must not be part of a nature patheon as Undead are beyond their understanding to control or affect (druids can’t turn undead). Finally with the devil/demon turning there will be a need to review the Outer Planes monster compendiums to find the correct type of creatures that may be turned. Anti paladins would affect some of the aasimar…others would affect the guardinal, eladrin, rilmani, beatzu…

AS DM you will have to handle the details here.

  1. Call on warhorse…this power could be more viably made into warmount…as some races and faiths would have their own version of the faithful mount.

  2. Cast priest spells…this is taken care of by the original Dragon Magazine Article.

Now with these said I want to mention a small bit on the variations of personal beliefs…which it does appear that some wish to have limitations int he playing of alignment.

The ideas of faith/belief structures would be well and truely tied into the deity they chose and their alignment. Just because it isn’t good or evil doesn’t mean that is unswervingly follows a set of beliefs tied to its religious order.

Heck look at real world faiths, and all the varieties of belief systems, now multiply it by the varied levels of personal zeal one carries for such a belief system, and in my lowly opinion you can easilly integrate the militant orders of each faith and alignment to have their cadre of Paladins.

Also for my ol’ Paramander…The Paramander above worshipped with a lot of very zealous stealing in the Name of Hermes…and he also enjoyed a game of cards from time to time…lucky such and such.

Just some ideas on the subject.

Later

:cool:

11

Well, your mileage clearly varies. I merely point out that we have examples of thousands of dedicated people from privleged classes who gave away every advantage their social class afforded them to become militant monks with rigid discipline - both in their daily life, and on the battlefield, and that they clearly were an elite warrior class, who outperformed their counterparts in what was considered already to be a military elite (knights).

Since his objection as first posed was based primarily on there not being enough dedicated warriors to a religious ideal to have more than one palladin per religion or sect, I pointed out an actual example from European History. Let’s not forget the warrior monks of Japan, while we are looking to actual examples that existed as well. :slight_smile:

From my point of view, a lot of peoples campaigns as described underplay the importance of clerics, temples, and religions, by a serious margin, and go by a more modern model, of religions, while overplaying the impact and commonality of magic (which takes away from it’s wonder and power, in my mind), using it as a commonplace science and technology substitute. To me, this ruins the medivalesque feel I and my players crave in a campaign, but the best thing about D&D is that it is many things to many people, and people can design their own campaigns, and pick and chose rules to suit, while ignoring others that don’t.

12

What I really like about free multi-classing is that you can build the “paladin” you want precisely. The ratio of fighter to cleric, or ranger to druid, or barbarian to druid, rogue to cleric, and on and on. And if you think a paladin of Ruornil has wizard levels, go for it. While I have no problem with the paladin per se, it seems more like a hold-over from single classing 1st and 2nd edition than a class that makes sense in 3rd edition. If a player wanted to play a paladin or a paladin varient, I wouldn’t object. The concept of the holy warrior dedicated to his cause I think has a lot going for it.

13

This is my single biggest objection to the way the cleric-undead interaction is handled. To my mind, druids should be much better at turning undead than any other religion, since undead are first and foremost unnatural (especially as, for example, skeletons and zombies don’t even have enough willpower to qualify as Evil). In Cerilia, I see opposition to and power to harm the undead, in order from greatest to least, as Erik, Ruornil, Avani, Laerme, Nesirie, Cuiraecen, Sera, Haelyn, Belinik, Eloele, Kriesha. In fact, I allow priests of Haelyn to choose to command, rather than turn, undead, if they wish – it expresses loyalty to the state even after death.

Ryan

14

Well, the basis of the limitatation was that paladins used to require an incredible charisma, based on a standard 3d6 method of character generation. Other requirements would further limit this already small pool of potential paladins. Add the rigorous ethical constraints and the pool deminishes further.

I have no doubt that a very large group of people would adhear to rigorous ethical constraints and join a religious knightly order. If that is your only requirement to call people paladins, then they no doubt exist in very large numbers. If they must exibit special qualities in addition (see discussions on how many clerical spellcasters there are starting say,

If I were modeling Knights Templar, Hospitilars, Teutonic Knights, or other religious knightly orders, my own choice would to make them warriors and fighters lead by paladins and clerics. Paladins have too much going on as a class to represent these guys.

15

:smiley:

This is my single biggest objection to the way the cleric-undead interaction is handled. To my mind, druids should be much better at turning undead than any other religion, since undead are first and foremost unnatural (especially as, for example, skeletons and zombies don’t even have enough willpower to qualify as Evil). In Cerilia, I see opposition to and power to harm the undead, in order from greatest to least, as Erik, Ruornil, Avani, Laerme, Nesirie, Cuiraecen, Sera, Haelyn, Belinik, Eloele, Kriesha. In fact, I allow priests of Haelyn to choose to command, rather than turn, undead, if they wish – it expresses loyalty to the state even after death.

I have to agree with you on this Ryan!!!

I never agreed that druids should be unable to turn undead. I didn’t house rule it in though…I do that a lot for ideas which need to be worked into the game because of good logic.

Their gods would be just as much against the undead forces, and another note you might want to make is that not all neutral deities are not nature oriented, so they are capable of turning or controlling undead as they wish. Of course they are not druids either.

I believe this was one of the many attempts to weaken more powerful classes in some vain attempt to make it seem more even steven…I hate issues like these where someone is trying to establish a equality based on their personal beliefs in a game where all the classes are and never were equal.

I would house rule it in myself…maybe with a +2 turn bonus for the forces of life discorporating undead and returning them to the land.

Later

:wink:

16

Part two as I waffled on too long…

Chosen of the gods
Back to the main thread.

When deciding if a god should have a champion, you need to decide whether a god needs them, and what effect being a champion has.

Why bother?
If a standard class can fit the bill, why create a new one? So if a paladin of Ruornil can satisfy the gods needs, you don’t need to add anything for Ruonril to have a champion. Similarly if Belinik’s champion can be reflected with a berseker, or Erik’s with a druid, they have no need for a separate ‘champion class’.

I would add a champion only if I wanted to add something unusual to the character, otherwise keep it as a title with no attached game mechanics.

What effect?
Looking at Faerun, which is where Matan seems to be coming from, the main game effect of being a chosen of Mystra is that:

Immortality. So the designers don’t need to design a series of champions when making backstory, they can just have immortal McGuffins. This actually is a cheap power to throw around, even though in reality it would be highly sought after, immortality is great but has no real effect on game play beyond people’s responses and the types of plans they make. ‘The human insulted my friend, a century after he is dust in his grave I will desecrate his memory and make his people scorn his name’.

Silver fire. To be honest this always sounded like ‘Elminster is the bestest mage so he needs to be able to do everything magic’ to me, but whatever. It’s a powerful visually effective ability although the relative lack of usage indicates it was an afterthought after someone asked why old El couldn’t do spellfire…

Invulnerability to some spells. I don’t really see the point aside from getting an author out of a hole in writing or show a trick, if a hostile spell is that bad fix the spell, not the character…

Spontaneous spells. Now this is a major power given the spell slot system in most D&D games which does fit in very well with the idea of a closer understanding of magic.

I would say that when converting to 3.5e the chosen should have been given a prestige class, ‘chosen of mystra’ and got the above as powers in place of spells (they don’t need more spell levels anyway after L20 which is low for them) as it is simply giving them for free is unbalancing.

The balance issue isn’t a problem for M-T, but it is a problem for me - if Mystra can power up her folk without cost, why wouldn’t the other gods do likewise? With lots of super-troopers around why would anyone not ally with a god for the power-up? Pretty soon everyone is superman, fine if you like the style but otherwise just a pain for the DM.

Champion prestige class.
The champion would therefore have a few unusual feats, possibly a shift from spells to granted powers or special abilities.

New limitations could be social (hard to balance with crunch bonus’s), weaknesses (Ruornil’s chosen share a vulnerability of the god, are weaker in areas with low source potential, etc), loss of range in previous abilities, etc.

So for example the champion of Belink:
Could gain physical abilities like strength, constitution, regeneration, natural armour, rage, reputation. But lose intelligence, wisdom, charisma, dexterity, feats (who need skill when you’ve got strength, weaklings practice to overcome deficiencies, the mighty simply reach out their hands and take their prize…)

A champion of Ruornil:
Could cast either priest or wizard spells (not extra spells, but a wider selection), spontaneously cast from a tight list, gain intelligence, etc. But be vulnerable to cold iron (mythically a sovereign against much magic), unable to use ‘shadow’ implicated magic, be readily marked out as inherently magical, etc.

A champion of Avani:
Gain speed, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, light based powers, but lose strength when not in sunlight, be vulnerable to necromancy, or cold.

A champion of Eloele
Might be able to shadow walk, be inhumanly swift, but vulnerable to light, unable to effectively use heavy armour.

A champion of Haelyn
Gain rallying abilities akin to bardic music, inhuman insight into motivations, charisma bonuses, but be weakened by loss of faith by followers, perhaps not quite as tough as they would otherwise be.

Etc, etc.

Obviously if you don’t want balance in your game, just ignore the losses, but don’t be surprised when other players complain about favouritism or demand to be the chosen of their pet god…

17

It seems that most royals have rough and strained relationships with their offspring. (Especialy English Monarchs) I suspect the whole rival for the throne and not wishing to be suplanted thing is involved.

The normal desire is to see your offspring do better than you, many Royals however do not wish to be remembered as the Parent of the great ruler and so they seem to undermine if not outright sabotage their children somtimes.

Add a healthy dose of offspring wanting to oust you and sibling rivalry and you have a more disfunctional bunch than ever dared to appear on Jerry Springer… :wink:

18

:cool:

One item at a time, I will come back for another nip later!!

Druids and undead.
A counter argument to druidic turning is that druids have power over natural things, clerics over supernatural; as undead are inherently supernatural - and moreover absolutely opposed the nature, the druid has no power over them.

Of course I allowed priests to turn other ‘otherworldly beings’ such as elves and (if they were very lucky) awnshegh and hostile scions too, so I know I played the turn undead ability very differently to most…

The abomination against nature of the undead should be the key here. Deities of the nature portfolios would be heck bent on destroying this abomination to the life and nature forces, and to handcuff them with some arbitrary balance issue put their viewpoint out on an undefensible limb in LOGIC!!!

Game balance has no place in the argument. I also see your supernatural viewpoint on it to be inherently flawed…as all deity affecting the real world could well be classified as supernatural, and not just the cleric skill set/alignments that you are trying to represent them as.

The druid should have power over undead to DESTROY them…it is only logical from a forces of life/nature vs the forces of undeath/afterlife.

Each to their own of course.

Later

:rolleyes:

BTW…If your rebuttal could find a way to be a little more concise I would appreciate it. I hate having to hike through a lot of material to find what your point is, but of course I will if you feel it is necessary to validate your point of view…which I am not sure you can with the points I listed above.

19

Yes, that has always been my position.

On a related note, my favorite RPG pantheon is the Orlanthi gods from Glorantha. In that system, unlike many D&D worlds, the God of Death is the primary opponent of the undead, because they violate his cardinal rule: after you die, you’re supposed to stay that way. =)

Ryan

20

This is really excellent stuff! Powers this thematically appropriate might even defeat my ancient opposition to paladins!

Ryan