Do we really need two faith based heavy armored classes?
 Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
 |
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
Do we really need two faith based heavy armored classes?
Do we really need two faith based heavy armored classes?
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
|
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
Yes. Paladins are for DEUS VULT style religious characters. Clerics are for your local pastor Jim style religious characters.
that is where I disagree. Both are for DEUS VULT. one is melee blessed with god-given melee-boosting spells, and the other is a caster using the power of faith to enact blessings/maledictions and miracles/curses while being blessed with god-given martial abilities
similar, but still distinct.
Why is your local pastor heavily armed and armored though?
Because this is a setting with dragons. It's in the name, dude.
So were is the rogue/monk/wizard/etc's heavy armor?
>rogue
Can't sneak in heavy armor
>monk
Entire point is he doesn't need armor
>wizard
Can't cast in heavy armor
why can the cleric cast in heavy armor but not the wizard?
>why can the cleric cast in heavy armor but not the wizard?
praying for a miracle vs precise inputs to execute arcane program.
Arcane magic vs Faith magic
Wizard needs a lot of components and a wide range of movement in order to bend the fabric of reality. Clerics magic is literally just asking a god to do things and they do it.
You understand that this fluff was decided post hoc, right?
He’s American.
WotC already covered that in 5E. Clerics get medium armor by default, and need to take a domain that acts like a fighter or paladin multi-class to get heavy armor.
Sometimes the best way to protect your flock is to hunt wolves.
Russians too. Pretty sure all their guns work against vampires as well.
Clerics aren't even heavily armored for the most part.
Is there a barber class for splitting hairs this hard?
>two faith-based classes in the entire game
>both on the heavier end of the armor spectrum
Only war clerics have heavy armor proficiency, IIRC. Otherwise you get medium armor like everyone else.
Depends on the edition, obviously, but given OP's art is from 5e, there are a frickton of domains that get heavy armor. War is the obvious one, but so does Forge, Life, Order, Tempest, and Twilight. And Life is the subclass that's in the basic rules, so it's hard to say heavy armor is some sort of rare exception
>Going off the art
Nogames posters I swear to god
Clerics had the best of the best armor proficiencies right up until 4E.
Clerics are armoured, not heavily armoured.
Priests could wear heavy armor back in the day.
Not really. Either could be sub-classed into the other.
Why not just put paladin back as a fighter sub class?
I'd rather put monk there.
I want monk to be every class's subclass.
Unarmed combat and protection should be available to everyone anyway.
>everyone should have access to 1d4 punches because... they just should, okay???
Yes.
Everyone already does. Just take a feat. In fact you could skip tavern brawler and go for the fighting initate feat which gives you a fighting style which in turn could be
the unarmed style. That style makes your fists do 1d6 or 1d8 if you aren't holding anything. This makes your unarmed attacks more damaging than a monks until the monk reaches 11th level or also picks that feat.
anyone can throw a punch with bare minimum training unless they were born armless.
An untrained fighter can accidentally kill someone with a clumsy punch IRL.
So why does it cap at 1+str in tg's favorite system?
5e commoners have 4hp.
No, sorry. Not wearing armor for protection requires special skills/powers.
yeah, it's called martial arts.
Paladins shouldn't be faith based at all. The original D+D paladins got power from their sheer lawfulness and massive stats, and could only live with lawful princes and lords. Unlike clerics, who draw power from worship, paladins drew power from righteousness, and their only supernatural abilities were immunity to disease, laying on of hands, and the ability to dispel any magic by commanding it hence as long as they were holding a holy sword.
Now Paladins are just shit Clerics who traded spellcasting for full BAB and some insignificant minor powers.
AD&D and BASIC paladins got spells later on, as did rangers, but lost some big fighter features.
Paladins got a frickton of artifacts and turn undead too.
Agree, Paladins should be Medieval European knights turned up to 11
Yes, and to medieval european knights, rightenousness = God. You're using the same mentality that lets clerics be clerics of ideas instead of gods. I will grant that it makes more sense for a paladin, but it's still kind of dumb. If you want it in your setting, sure, but in most settings it doesn't make sense, and just screams "I'm a cringe ass atheist IRL but I want paladin powers." Maybe there should be some sort of mechanically similar archetype that isn't a divinely powered knight, but I would not call it a paladin anymore.
That's basically what it was in AD&D. Fighters are paladins were both warriors, with fighters being the sort of default warrior archetype. You couldn't, say, dual class fighter paladin. They also couldn't be considered anything approaching a cleric since they didn't get spells until 9th.
That's a specialty priest, and it's how they work. Clerics were the default priest archetype, but still just a priest archetype.
With strength 16, 1+str = the HP of a level 0 commoner. I think the real justification is that 1d4 makes it as good as a dagger, which is... weird.
>Yes, and to medieval european knights, rightenousness = God
Yes, but there's a difference. A godly knight, like Galahad, was no priest. He didn't celebrate masses or have a congregation or answer to the bishop.
5e paladins specifically get powers from oaths to give them different options, but even older paladins weren't limited to working for a church (except 4e). The oldest paladins could be church knights, but they could also be regular ass "work for a lord" knights, or freelance do-gooders. In all cases, limiting yourself to only benefiting one religion would be a decision above and beyond just being a paladin, and most paladins would tithe to literally the first good aligned church they came across after getting loot, no matter which one it was, because they weren't beholden to any of them in their pursuit of righteous chivalry.
The issue comes from fighters being so open ended that they can easily include any kind of guy with weapon found in history or fantasy and it works perfectly. It's hard to shoehorn in a knight when a fighter can easily be a knight with minimum amounts of specialization and fluff. While still mostly being fluff.
Galahad seems like a bad example here. since he was kind of the perfect symbol of chivalric knight that maintained his strict code of honor and adherence to his faith that he was almost a holy creature himself. He makes for a perfect paladin example in some interpretations.
Basically yes
There is no need to special shit like a samurai class since that can be covered by making a fighter that specializes in a 2 hand slashing weapon, while the player just says they are from not-Japan.
Or a knight class since that is just a fighter with more money at start and the player just says they come from a minor noble family and is wearing his grandfather's armor.
Or a barbarian since that's a fighter with no shirt that fricks sheep and loads all stats into strength.
Alternatively Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock can be the same thing but with different fluff explanations for how they got their magic. Spells are mostly the same and cast exactly the same.
Too bad 3.5 took a giant shit on the very concept of customizing your character to your flavor. They just made hundreds of base classes that COULD have been handled by optimizing a fighter, rogue, or wizard. But it made more money to sell book after book after book of mostly useless bullshit to people that did not know any better.
>Paladins shouldn't be faith based at all.
And...they aren't. Even in 5e. I have no idea where the whole "servant of the gods" thing comes from because it literally hasn't been in a single class description for the class, instead going on about honor and justice and stuff.
Thank FR for the confusion.
That said, 4e paladins are explicitly shields of the church.
>even in 5e
Only in 5e, moron, paladins literally lose their powers if they do anything that isn't lawful good and only a cleric can allow him to have them back by giving him instructions to do penance.
In AD&D2 they literally HAD to give 10% of their income to a lawful good church.
It's always been like that.
In 3e the Atonement spell was on the Paladin list, so a paladin could seek atonement from another paladin. No cleric needed. That's leaving aside that the 3e description for the class is explicit that while paladins may worship a god, their powers and first devotion is to virtue, righteousness, and justice.
In earlier editions, while paladins needed to go to a cleric if they broke their oath, nothing in the class itself is explicit about paladins serving any god.
Frick off, if you need to a servant of a god to give you back your powers it's pretty obvious where they're coming from. Also, the rules say paladin spells follow the exact same rules than cleric spells, they even mention spheres, which are a god's domain. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
Also, in 3e it's explicitly explained that paladins' spells are divine and that divine spells come from deities and divine forces. Again, no doubt whatsoever.
>in 3e it's explicitly explained that paladins' spells are divine and that divine spells come from deities and divine forces
Or the power of belief, or alignment worship.
Cherrypicking phrases doesn't make a good argument if you actually read the book.
It doesn't say any of that you moron, that's 5e.
Holy fricking shit how many time do I have to repeat it, he literally has to ask a fricking priest to get his power back and it's fricking written word for word that his spells are exactly like priest spells with Spheres and all (gods' domains).
Stop it with your moronic head canon already.
Yeah, literally any priest from any good religion. And 2e is where conceptual priests were added.
Considering how extremely specific Paladin rules are, including that when possible they'll associate with Lawful Good patriarchs OR nobles, must keep their wealth in check, can only hire similarly aligned henchmen, and must never do evil or chaos, if they were required to be a servant of a specific church, that would be spelled out.
As it stands, the only time they even need to interact with a priest is when they're dropping off their charity and if they dun goof, and in both cases, it can be any aligned priest (except for a PC in the case of tithing). In fact, because the word "charitable" is literally in the requirement for who they give tithe to, they could not give it to a fire and brimstone militant church unless that church also runs a soup kitchen or builds houses for the needy or something else charitable.
>if they were required to be a servant of a specific church
Nobody ever claimed that, I don't know why you're discussing this point. We're discussing the fact that they're faith based. Which they obviously are (and always were) contrary to what an anon in the discussion claimed there:
The thing is though, they only lose their powers by breaking the tenets of chivalry or the alignments of good and law (or whichever one actually exists when both don't).
They can break the rules of every single good god that exists, as long as they don't fail to be chivalrous when doing so, they won't lose anything. It doesn't matter if Gorthimbl, God of smashing orcs and adopting orphans proclaims that his followers must never bathe on a Tuesday, every single Paladin can bathe every day of the week without losing jack shit. Even the ones specifically dedicated to Gorthimbl.
moronic take, the tenets of lawful good gods are lawful good and there's absolutely no mention whatsoever of a chivalry code.
Listen, stop desperately trying to find a loophole to squeeze in your head canon, if you want the paladin to have no connection whatsoever to faith and divinities you can just do that in your own games and in your head, that's okay, but that's simply not what's written.
Unless you're playing 4e, that's simply how paladins work. They don't have to follow the tenets of any god. That's why their rules are universal for all paladins. If they were following a specific god, they'd have that specific god's rules.
Nobody has to follow the tenets of any god, even clerics can deviate from their god's alignment, stop trying to move the goalpost.
God this whole board is so moronic.
Okay, so if they don't have to follow a god, and they don't have to work for the church, where are you getting that they're faith based and get powers from gods they don't have to interact with or obey? They get spells "like a cleric", but that's the edition that added clerics of ideals and concepts, and even the clerics of specific gods aren't actually beholden to them. They don't even have to want to be a cleric, the gods can just zap them with cleric juice.
>It doesn't say any of that you moron
Every paladin must pledge fealty to something. As a minimum, he must pledge fealty to either a religion or philosophy; this faith is what grants him the special powers described in Chapter 2. Beyond this requirement, patrons should derive logically from the paladin's background and outlook. In most campaigns, the proper patrons will be self-evident. For instance:
• If a paladin follows the tenets of a lawful good religion and serves in the military of a lawful good ruler, he probably swears fealty to both his church and government.
• If a paladin comes from a rigid theocratic culture (a society ruled exclusively by priests) or serves no feudal lord, he probably pledges fealty to the church alone.
• If a lawful good monarchy has no formal relationship with an established religion, the paladin might pledge fealty to a ruler and a philosophy, and not to a church.
• If a paladin operates independently and has no ties to a government or church, he'll probably pledge fealty to a philosophy.
Turns out pledging fealty to a philosophy was enough to give a Paladin powers even back in 1994.
>In AD&D2 they literally HAD to give 10% of their income to a lawful good church
No, just a good one
>It's always been like that.
Absolutely was not from late 1e up to 3.5e.
Unless you can show me where it says that in a book. Paladins were religious adjacent, but not powered by gods.
This has already been answered. Read.
>linking an irrelevant post
Typical 4rrytard
>It's always been like that.
Paladins don't have to work for a church. Even in AD&D and 2e their requirement to donate wealth can be to any church or to "a worthy cause". They donate to churches because they're supposed to be good people, not because they're servants of the church.
2E Complete Paladin expands this by laying out three models of church and state interaction (co-dominant, theocracy, and secular government). In theocracy and secular government, the paladin is expected to swear fealty to the dominant power (the church in theocracy and the state in secular government). In co-dominant, the Paladin is expected to swear fealty to both. The idea is that in a co-dominant society neither church nor state would ever order Paladin to do something that conflicts with the other with the exception of minor things like the state asking the Paladin to work on the Sabbath.
In AD&D, tithing to a (emphasis on A, not The) church is merely part of their chivalrous code. It can also be substituted for tithing to any charitable organization, because that's the actual point of that stipulation. A good chivalrous knight gives to the poor and needy, but also isn't running their own fricking soup kitchen so they delegate that part. A Paladin may answer to a church, but might also answer to a lord, or not answer to anyone at all.
In Forgotten Realms specifically, all magic is derived from gods, including so called arcane magic, so Paladins do need to get it from a god. They still don't need to work for that god's church.
As an aside, the Weave was a fricking mistake.
It's World of Warcraft that really messed with the pop culture presentation of Paladins, since they had cloth-wearing Priests instead. That was part of Warcraft's appeal at the time - it messed with a lot of classical D&D stereotypes (spiritual Minotaurs, noble savage Orcs, etc.)
The classic influences cited for Paladins in AD&D were more mythical Arthurian questing knight-errants like Galahad, whereas the Cleric was more of the "deus vult" Knights Templar type.
>it messed with a lot of classical D&D stereotypes (spiritual Minotaurs
Didn't Dragonlance do it first? For that matter didn't Magic do it before Warcraft as well with the Anaba?
Dragonlance definitely did it first; I'm pretty sure Warcraft took the tinker gnome idea from Dragonlance (or perhaps), but Dragonlance didn't really mess with Paladins to the same extent I feel. In Warcraft the Paladins are established after the Clerics of Northshire Abbey are wiped out, as clear successors.
That being said, I think there's always been some tension between D&D and fantasy literature - there's no real class archetype for the "man of the cloth" priest/prophet that you see a lot in mythology.
You are correct. Classes suck and require 2 different ones for minor changes.
________?
Clerics should be dressed in the attire associated with their deity and should be able to use the same favored weapon of their deity instead of the whole "cl3rics must neva sh3d bLod duuurrrr" bullshit. Clerics are conduits of their gods after all.
If it were up to me, paladins would simply be a subclass of fighter and dedicated to a deity regardless of alignment.
Because your mom is a big b***h and last night when I fricked her she was like, "Oh god! Oh God! Oh God!"
one casts spells, the other not so much
I mean, D&D has reasons for it that are related to traditionalism.
Any fantasy heartbreaker that doesn't just make Paladins a more martial-oriented Clerical subclass is doing it wrong, though.
No. Delete Paladin.
No reason an ordained Cleric wouldn't have to take an oath.
>No reason an ordained Cleric wouldn't have to take an oath.
A priest wouldn't take an oath of chivalry, that's what the paladins oath is meant to reflect.
Yeah get rid of Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians and make them specializations for the Fighter
Cleric dont have to wear armor they could just go cloth like a typical priest, paladins are all about fighting
Paladins should be removed. They're redundant and confusing from a lore perspective and bland and awkward to balance in terms of crunch.
Clerics aren't a heavy armor class anymore.
At minimum they have medium armor + shield, putting them in the second highest tier.
No, but then again, you don't need two beefy melee warriors, nor six pure casters (four of which being variations of arcane casters).
It would be much more reasonable to have one warrior class and reduce casters to 1-3 between full casters (strictly cloth) and half-casters (which should be halfway between a cleric and a paladin in both fighting prowess and casting ability). Remove magic from bards. Rogues and rangers can stay, but no magic options. Monk may need work.
Here, suddenly D&D classes are slightly less moronic!
Giving every other cleric subclass heavy armor and martial weapons was a mistake, yes. The only one that should have that is a War Cleric. Also take away most of their subclass spell lists or limit its casting in some manner.
Subclasses should bolster particular features of a class. Not just be massive buffs for every situation with an already strong class.
That depends on how much y'all need Jesus.
Hint: two classes isn't near enough
Yes, we need both a Defender and a Leader.
We do, because if there's one thing people have learned about D&D, it's that people *really* dislike the idea of a classless/archetypal system.
In an ideal world, you could just assign points towards your spellcasting ability and towards your fighting ability, so that a "Paladin" emerges somewhere on that spectrum.
It's one of those classes that will never go away now despite its redundancy. Like Sorcerers, Warlocks, Monks, or Barbarians.
>assign points towards your spellcasting ability and towards your fighting ability, so that a "Paladin" emerges
This wouldn't happen unless you had "Paladin" spellcasting abilities and "Paladin" fighting abilities. The class is not just "sword but also spell".
>The class is not just "sword but also spell".
Yes it is? Well that and smites
>The class is not just "sword but also spell"
Yeah, the spells mostly sucked. In 3e, when we saw Paladins becoming closer their more moronic modern form, they were still largely defined by their class features, especially smite evil, detect evil, lay on hands, and aura of courage, their CHA based defensive bonuses, and free horse. Their spellcasting just contributed more towards making them a MAD mess.
>In an ideal world, you could just assign points towards your spellcasting ability and towards your fighting ability, so that a "Paladin" emerges somewhere on that spectrum.
What? No.
Rangers, paladins, eldritch knights (in 5e, or one of the countless arcane/martial prestige classes in 3.5e) all play very differently despite sitting at a fairly similar place on the martial-caster spectrum.
Have you tried playing 4e?
The horror.
No but I'd be open to it.
whoever came up with the word and concept of "paladin" should unironically take his meds
The non-WOW Paladin takes the name from the song of Roland and the class features from Le Morte d' Arthur
Neither of those authors would have had access to meds
>Neither of those authors would have had access to meds
Oh they would have but it's the kind of "meds" the /x/ uses to make things worse.
You’re a looney.
Paladins could be folded into clerics if you're designing a new game and want to tidy up the classes, but otherwise I don't see the point in complaining.
The distinction makes infinitely more sense in AD&D.
AD&D classes tried to emulate specific archetype from classic fantasy and sword & sorcery.
Cleric were always described as analogous to crusader military orders. Paladins were specifically fulfilling the archetypes of questing Christian Knights such as Sir Galahad, or Roland the Paladin (hence the class' name), Illya Muromets or the main character from Three Hearts & Three Lions.
Clerics are your "Deus Vult" crusaders. Paladins are your legendary heroes from Songs of Chivalry.
>Clerics are your "Deus Vult" crusaders. Paladins are your legendary heroes from Songs of Chivalry.
Why do players seem to play it out in reverse in practice?
MMOs, especially World of Warcraft
I thought Gygax made Cleric because his friend wanted to play Van Helsing?
Other way around, a player was playing a vampire and the DM (I don't remember if it's Gygax or Arneson) made a van helsing antagonist to fight them. In a later game, someone wanted to use that as a PC, so they started working out how it would exist as a class.
yes
They play extremely different in practice, so, yes.
Do Rangers and Druids really need to exist together, either? Fighters and Barbarians? Wizards and Sorcerers? Rogues and Bards?
The reality is, all "classes" are just some combination of Fighter, Magic User, Priest, or Rogue.
>Fighter, Magic User, Priest, or Rogue
Really all you need, everything can be lumped into here.
>rogue
Get that useless shit out of here. We only need Fighting Men, Priests, and Magic Users.
>not having a utility monkey class
Why cant the martials be skill monkeys as well?
Fightan & Magicks.
>Spending your time learning war tactics and swinging a sword means you are a master at picking locks
The people who buck against rogue archtypes being their own thing are easily the most braindead morons to infest this genre.
>He is confusing adventuring fighters with warrior knights
>Again
Only because "magic user" is moronicly broad. You could say all classes exist under "guy who does things", too.
We have two treehugging classes
two unarmored brawler punchy classes
two robe wearing magic spell classes
two charisma stealing stuff bastard classes
why not?
At a first glance on paper it does seem like the Cleric is more of a Friar tuck and less of an Ivanhoe.
It does seem like the cleric should be more like the wandering friar than the knighted crusader. Someone in plain vestments and carrying their holy symbol and maybe a simple weapon for self defense. While their faith and protection from their god id their main strength and defense.
Not really no.
It's just weebs bringing their white mage bullshit into western games and assuming a healer must be someone in a white roe with a staff that only casts spells too.
>and assuming a healer must be someone in a white roe with a staff that only casts spells too.
Ok anon but that doesn't really have anything to do with the cleric or paladin.
Clerics technically aren't heavily armored...
But the heavy armor variants do tend to be the most popular.
Honestly, its a reflection of Medieval Europe. They are supposed to be holy warriors, of course they can use heavy armor.
I think MMOs are what inspired shit like OP. Since all clerics in the main MMOS are heavy plate armored semi tanks.
>MMOs are what inspired shit like OP
Old D&D let Priests use any armor and shield.
>Do we really need two faith based heavy armored classes?
Yes, they serve entirely different purposes. Also one isnt heavily armored.
4e had five faith-based classes with four of them having at least medium armor proficiency. Pathfinder had 6, with at least 5 of them having medium armor proficiency. None were redundant just as 5e cleric and paladin arent redundant. Its only literal morons and the terminally stupid who think such.
5e had four total classes, Faith was just a flavor that could be stacked on top any one of those
What the frick are you talking about?
defender/leader/striker/controller were the actual classes anon, everyone knows this.
>everyone knows this.
You typed 5e and not 4e, and no, those weren't the class system because two leaders could be very different classes depending on power source. You are a moron who doesn't know what the frick he is talking about.
>most subclasses either start with or can get heavy armor proficiency early
Only half of the cleric subclasses gain heavy armor and including the ability to take a feat to gain heavy armor is disingenuous. But 5e is a shit system with bad game design and idiotic devs who don't understand thematics. This doesn't mean the two classes should be combined or one gotten rid of. Pathfinder manages to have both classes be interesting, and quite different, even if they are both god-worshipping divine classes. All it takes is good game design and a respect for the thematic ideas of each and not just simplistic slap dash stupidity like 5e.
Only morons "know" that.
>Also one isnt heavily armored.
>most subclasses either start with or can get heavy armor proficiency early
Sure thing anon.
Disgusting how that orc, the depraved filthy monster it is, thinks it can kill a paladin and wear his armor like it's a person.
Agreed. Paladins must be Human, must be Lawful Good, and must have a minimum of 17 CHA.
Do we really need two threads in a row about clerics and paladins?
We need a thread where we realize that we should go back to calling them Priests instead of Clerics.
We need eight.
D&D ruined healing in general. The only healing you get in games is magic based, so no medical checks using bandages. Then you have the fact that healing is one of the most powerful utilities you have and most if not all healers get some sort of armor from light to medium. Then those healing classes get to dip into what wizards are supposed to do by being able to give out buffs AND deal damage. And lastly healing magic is always tied to the Gods so you have divine rights and limits your roleplay potential and unlike paladins you can never lose favor with your god unless you really frick up big time and the DM says so.
Final fantasy got healing magic right with it just being another wizard class, being squishy like other wizards and not being bound to a god as well as making sure white mages don't have a monopoly on healing.