Evil paladins are a thing way back into AD&D, within GM fiat.
Ie evil gigachad instead of good gigachad.
Albeit evil paladin should always be a Death Knight, as Orcus intended.
>Today I shall fireball as a level 20 caster.
Which makes me think... How moronic would it be for a half caster class to have the ability to cast one 9th level spell as a capstone? For example the one you said, no utility, no choices, just one once per day frick you spell.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Depends on the edition, depends on the spell.
Death knights are just 6 flavors of "frick you, stand down." and are designed for that fricking people up.
Post AD&D, D&D is a very HP bloat heavy game, as you no longer end up with 9d10+33 HP at level 20 and instead end up with (assuming 5e and "average" (14) stats as before that it is even worse) 20d10+40 that alone is a 11d10 difference in HP.
Look here man, Christmas and the countiuous existance of the Irish are real issues that needs to be tackled so that our lord's kingdom on this his earth can become manifest.
Cromwell unironically did nothing wrong. The English parliamentary system would not have survived had he not btfo'd the royalists. And he rightfully exposed catholic nobility as being a 5th column beholden to foreign interests.
Bruh, your Protestant queen is a member of the German Battenberg family and the Church of England doesn't even know what a woman is. I'm glad my ancestors left your shitty rock.
>what is an evil god
Chaotic evil characters who worship evil gods don't tend to make solemn oaths that heavily limit their behavior and force them to donate all of their money to charity. They make pacts for personal gain. Why are you fricking neckbeards incapable of understanding that evil characters are EVIL? It's not just the color of their jersey.
Evil characters absolutely can be fanatically devoted to causes and principles. Mixing real life examples with DnD's alignment system is probably ill-advises, and mentioning Nazis admittedly always feels kind of cheap, but I'd say that taking a look at some truly devoted Nazi war criminals gives several examples of people who were both evil as frick and deeply devoted to something other than their own personal benefit.
Yes, but their causes are not ones that would in any way justify a paladin's oaths. A fighter can make oaths with his dark gods and get rewards. An evil god can empower a cleric to spread war or whatever. There is no reason why it has to have a direct analog to the paladin, because there is no direct analog to the paladin oaths in an evil ideology.
That's the point here. Paladins are a very specific kind of warrior based on a very specific legend. They weren't supposed to be the blueprint for a new class of divinely empowered oath knights who all operate the same way. Basically it's an extension of the problem with classes since 3e, where there had to be a class for everything. Witches, shamans, sorcerers, swashbucklers, samurai, ninjas, etc, really have no reason to exist when they can just be variants of the base classes. And the same goes for paladins and barbarians.
As a complete tangent, it seems kind of ironic that 3e got this so wrong, since you could (in principle) just take feats, multiclass and take prestige classes to make your character match your concept. If anything, 3e should've had the lowest number of base classes possible. And then PF went and made it even worse. Now that I think of it, that's really the core flaw (other than the stupid treadmill of progression): so many kinds of options competing to be the ones that define your character.
the really hardcore brits who think being British is more important than being a person just love to be dominated by foreign royalty
frankly it's embarrassing to live on the same continental shelf as them and I wish brexit could have been a very literal movement
Ok and so in the event of someone with xy or xxy chromsomes what do we call them? If what you say is true, why is it that most people never get chromosome tests, exchange results and use chromosomes to find a partner?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>o in the event of someone with xy or xxy chromsomes what do we call them?
A man. In the latter case, a man with a medical abnormality.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Well hang on there then lol define man, you dont get to weasel out of this.
because it's usually distinguishable by phenotype without genetic testing
Sounds like chromosomes are only one piece of the puzzle then. If men and women were defined by their chromosomes and all other facets incorporated into sex and gender were only as relevant as they reflected chromosomes; then why exactly is it that chromosomes werent discovered until the 1880s?
2 years ago
Anonymous
i already answered that question here.
because it's usually distinguishable by phenotype without genetic testing
2 years ago
Anonymous
Ok so then youre claiming phenotype defines whose a man and whose a woman, not chromosomes, as only phenotype is actually referenced and it does not 100% correspond to chromosomes which have never been used socially for gendering others.
2 years ago
Anonymous
because it's usually distinguishable by phenotype without genetic testing
Except he set up bunch of moronic non-issues to distract Bongs until about 1890s, along with creating a perpetual clusterfrick in Ireland and Scotland
Not to mention the obvious >Fully subjugate a land >Act surprised the locals resist you, since you are fricking them over in every possible way
>only the alignment of Lawful Good is capable of blessing champions fanatically devoted to this alignment, to fight for the Lawful Good alignment and spread the Lawful Good alignment >Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil lack the power to bless a champion and their followers lack the fanaticism to be willing to fight for their alignment >Lawful Good is uniquely capable of empowering and inspiring its champions
Hang on a minute, you're talking about 5e? There's nothing I can defend about that system, it's a dumpster fire. My solution is to replace Paladins with a Champion class, and have nine subclasses dependent on each alignment, Paladin being Lawful Good, Antipaladin being Chaotic Evil, and so on.
No.
Just 4, for the far extreme alignments. Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladins sworn to uphold a path at all costs.
Paladin[Lawful Good]
Champion[Chaotic Good]
Tyrant[Lawful Evil]
Ravager[Chaotic Evil]
>Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladins sworn to uphold a path at all costs.
That's moronic, if anything Neutral Good is the most extreme of all, because they're SOLELY focused on Good, whereas Lawful Good compromises the values of Good with the values of Lawfulness.
Incorrect. Neutral Good is focused on what it thinks is good, which is just a mismash of what Chaotic Good and Lawful Good think is good.
It is a grey zone in between wild freedom and bound devotion. It has neither the discipline of Law nor the courage of Chaos. It is just meh.
Like Neutral, but nicer.
>Neutral Good is focused on what it thinks is good, which is just a mismash of what Chaotic Good and Lawful Good think is good.
There is no "thinking" of Good. There is Good, and there is not Good, but it is always objective.
>My solution is to replace Paladins with a Champion class, and have nine subclasses dependent on each alignment, Paladin being Lawful Good
No.
Just 4, for the far extreme alignments. Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladins sworn to uphold a path at all costs.
Paladin[Lawful Good]
Champion[Chaotic Good]
Tyrant[Lawful Evil]
Ravager[Chaotic Evil]
Simple, balanced and effective.
>Just 4, for the far extreme alignments. Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladin
Ah yes, the PF2e approach. The Champion class, embodying the martial arm of the various churches, and required to uphold the tenets of Evil or Good and the ethos of the god they serve.
With 6 subclasses based on good or evil. The three good ones are the LG Paladin, the NG Redeemer, and the CG Liberator. The three evil are the LE Tyrant, NE Desecrator, and CE Antipaladin. There are no neutral champions (so far).
Why not? Evil people are fully capable of commitment and devotion, evil champions of dark god and wicked causes make sense, and representing them as a separate class from a regular paladin seems like redundant and waste of wordcount.
Paladins should be he same alignment as their god, not arbitrarily set to lawful good. the idea that evil gods wouldn't empowered champions to their cause is moronic.
>empowered champions
That's called a cleric. Paladins are a very specific warrior archetype. Making them their own class is why there's so much conceptual overlap between them and clerics.
the oaths are an improvement imo
it makes no sense to tie a class to an alignment
are the other gods just not as strong as the lawful good ones?
The point is that there are too many fricking classes, and paladins (and all other the paladin-like archetypes) should just be warrior archetypes/kits/subclasses/whatever you want to call them. Clerics are already heavily inspired by crusaders, so they are the actual class that represents what everyone is talking about when they talk about divinely empowered knights. Paladins are more like ideal of chivalry, with an emphasis on the faith part that sets them apart from other fighters who might also be knights.
Also, one of the huge conceptual problems here, even with the oath-based 5e concept, is that paladins are limited because Good demand high standards. Evil is attractive to the power hungry because of its lack of standards (or at the very least, standards you can twist and abuse, in the case of lawful evil). What would an evil oath look like? Do whatever you can to be more powerful? Ok, how would that be limiting to an evil paladin's playstyle? All characters are trying to become more powerful. Now you have one with a license to do whatever they want, because it says "be really evil" on their character sheet. At best, you could come up with some kind of contrivance like "must give away all wealth to evil cults or terrorist organizations" or something. Like, sure, there are idealistic evil people, who want to destroy the world etc, but then you have evil characters who can't be selfish and conniving. Why should an evil paladin not try as hard as possible to only pay lipservice to his oath? I'm not saying you couldn't come up with something that works, but whatever it is, it wouldn't really resemble a paladin anymore. It would be more like a warlock, someone who made an oath for power, but also chafes under it. Hey, maybe just use warlock?
>The point is that there are too many fricking classes
this is true but kind of irrelevant since they're going to keep adding classes as a selling point for supplement books > Evil is attractive to the power hungry because of its lack of standards
you're conflating lawful with good and chaotic with evil. a paladin should still be lawful but they shouldn't have to be good >What would an evil oath look like?
i literally had one included in that post. no mercy, do not tolerate opposition, might makes right. that's the only specifically evil one, though some others work as neutral (crown, glory, watchers) > Why should an evil paladin not try as hard as possible to only pay lipservice to his oath?
because then they would fall? >someone who made an oath for power, but also chafes under it.
that could describe a good paladin just as well
or you could write your evil paladin that they genuinely do believe in might makes right. there's plenty of evil characters who have a strict moral code that still allows them to kick puppies
>that could describe a good paladin just as well
No it fricking doesn't. The good paladin makes his oath out of genuine faith. Otherwise he's just a very devout fighter. The point is that these are dispositional differences. It's not that your evil oath isn't possible, but that the evil oath is in no way the analog of the paladin oath.
>you're conflating lawful with good and chaotic with evil. a paladin should still be lawful but they shouldn't have to be good
So only lawful evil paladin makes sense, correct. Good talk.
>What would an evil oath look like?
the only thing I can come with is if a good paladin turns to an evil god, and the evil god grants them powers that are essentially a parody of what they had. Lay on hands causing the person to wither away and die, aura of courage becoming aura of fear (I think oath breakers have this), ritual spells that reward depravity and acts of torture like an epstein island ceremony... Inversions specific to an oath would be cool too. Like an ex-ancients paladin having rituals that start unnaturally powerful wildfires, poison rivers or cause all the food in a large area to rot. Oath of glory paladins becoming slothful, gluttonous beasts who sleep 16 hours a day and have to eat people to keep their powers. Ex-watchers that summon abberations and fiends. That sort of thing.
Would be impossible to put this shit in a rulebook though,would be very game and DM dependent
5e tried to get away from the class bloat of earlier editions by making subclass bloat.
Now all warriors empowered by the divine end up being called paladins, where they may have been Avengers, Blackguards, Death Knights, or Wardens before.
Fricked thing is you don't even need deity specific empowerment to be a paladin. Literally stick to an Oath of your choice and as long as you follow that Oath you are set. Taking the Oath of Vengence route from the CRB could very easily have you be an Evil paladin. Straight up villain territory, just do your smiting on shit that the common folk hate with zero exceptions and you will still be following the path. So going full on Punisher mode against thieves, highway men, and the like regardless of the reasons they profess to why they resorted to such actions (need medicine, item, etc to help their loved ones) and you just smite the frickers pelvis out their forehead? All good RAW. So, yeah, pretty easy to go evil paladin.
I imagine evil paladins to be like endgame inquisitors in 40k, so fixated on the goal that they no longer can comprehend that the means they use to achieve it are no different from that of their foes.
>makes no zero sense
You're right. There's not a single aspect of it that makes zero sense. No matter how you look at it, it at least makes a little bit of sense. Well said. Good talk.
>it makes no sense to tie a class to an alignment
Paladins were recognized as regularly being the most powerful classes, with high survivability and damage output that was usually 2nd-place at worst. To balance it, the idea was to tie their exemplary abilities to an outside force empowering them but also tying them to a set of high standards that would leave them without a class if they broke them. To further limit this, it was decided it was Lawful Good gods that set such standards.
It was not just Paladins, but other classes tended to have certain alignment restrictions for a combination of controlling power and flavor. Monks were Lawful because of the strictness of training, Druids had to be some manner of Neutral since they had some manner of standoffishness from societal concerns, etc.
That first tenet reminds me of my pacifist homebrew in 3e, if I decided to thoroughly humiliate you with it you'd be trapped in a staggered condition for months.
How the frick would playing not only an explicitly evil character but an actual champion of evil let anyone feel righteous or moral? Explain your logic, please.
That's what evil people believe to justify their actions. That's why I laugh at anyone who says "everyone believes what they're doing is right." Maybe some evil people do. But most evil people don't believe in good and evil as real concepts, or believe it's all subjective.
When someone tries to steal your shit, you don't say "it's not objective true that you shouldn't steal my shit, but I'll be angry if you do so you shouldn't." Fricking absurd.
>But most evil people don't believe in good and evil as real concepts, or believe it's all subjective.
Most evil people are fully convinced they are champions of good. Especially the ones who say that people that dont follow their specific brand of objective morality are all evil and must be destroyed.
>Most evil people are fully convinced they are champions of good.
Have you literally ever listened to a wiretapped conversation between gangsters, drug cartel people, traffickers, crooked politicians, murderers, and other human garbage? Most of the time it's fricking disgusting to listen to. You're probably mistaking how they represent themselves to the plebs with how they actually are.
>Like law and order, the second set of attitudes is also divided into three parts. These parts describe, more or less, a character's moral outlook; they are his internal guideposts to what is right or wrong. >Good characters are just that. They try to be honest, charitable, and forthright. People are not perfect, however, so few are good all the time. There are always occasional failings and weaknesses. A good person, however, worries about his errors and normally tries to correct any damage done. >Remember, however, that goodness has no absolute values. Although many things are commonly accepted as good (helping those in need, protecting the weak), different cultures impose their own interpretations on what is good and what is evil.
>different cultures impose their own interpretations on what is good and what is evil
That's cool, but how can you smite a succubus if she doesn't consider herself evil? That's the way she lives. It just contradicts the rules.
>That's cool, but how can you smite a succubus if she doesn't consider herself evil
That's the secret
Paladins can smite whoever the want
That's the secret
To a good Paladin, EVERYTHING is evil
The correct answer is that smite evil is gay videogamey bullshit introduced by WoTC. No real D+D paladin has the ability to smite evil, not even a Skills and Powers AD&D Paladin.
Your justification, just like your idea, is garbage. Obviously nobody can stop you from running shit shit, but it's still shit and you can't stop us from telling you so.
Just call it some other name than paladin, if that eases your autism.
It's an oath bound follower of an evil god, who strives to live as a paragon of that gods ideals.
It's an evil paladin, for a lack of a better name.
Law is justice. Good is mercy. The synthesis of perfect jutice and perfect mercy is found in Christ. Ergo, Lawful good is the objectively correct alignment.
>Christ was a pacifist! >My name? Schmolo Goldenburg why you ask go- I mean, fellow christian!
Hopefully you are just israeli and not an actual, unironic protestant.
Not israeli, but I was circumcised in accordance to the israeli books. I've read them, too. There are hundreds of verses preaching peace and forgiveness, now go ahead and tell me about how christ driving out the moneylenders and telling men to sell their cloak and buy a sword is a call to take up arms against evildoers, kill them in their homes, and loot their corpses. You are not an Israelite called to battle against the Canaanites and you will never be, cope.
And you are not a Hebrew under Roman rule. Most of Christ's teachings were not universal, they were advice for the people he was talking to in the moment. To give an example, let me ask, how could you love thy neighbor as you love yourself, and yet remain pacifist, in the midst of an invasion by enemies who slaughter all those who they find?
>telling men to sell their cloak and buy a sword is a call to take up arms against evildoers, kill them in their homes, and loot their corpses.
But that is exactly what it is...
2 years ago
Anonymous
it's not, because in context he's sending his apostles out to preach when he tells them to buy a sword.
he's saying pack a piece to defend yourself from highwaymen, not go leave a trail of blood through the countryside. Not even a week prior he was scolding peter for attacking a roman guard that was arresting him for execution.
I'm not even christian anymore, but please actually read your bible if you're going to claim to follow it.
>Christ was a pacifist! >My name? Schmolo Goldenburg why you ask go- I mean, fellow christian!
Hopefully you are just israeli and not an actual, unironic protestant.
Jesus hätte euch die Fresse mit einer Peitsche eingeschlagen.
The Creator did not make a world of randomness. All is as it should be. What you see as randomness is merely a dance so complex that your mind can not fathom it. You are a child before him and always shall be.
God is Lawful Good.
Yes. Yes he did.
Go jump off a roof and tell me how much you were able to get the Creator to bend the rules for you.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Go work on the Sabbath and tell me how God hasn't smote you for it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you think that the rules the Creator made were written by some israelite in the desert 2000 years ago, you are an idiot.
The rules the Creator made are unalterable and immutable. They are permanent in a way that we are just beginning to truly understand. What some dirty, primitive israelite thought was a rule, has next to no bearing on the actual rules that were made.
Never understood how so many people fail to grasp this concept.
Paladins are essentially knights to a deity, right? They're militant clerics. Clerics can be evil, so why not paladins? If a person worships what others would consider an evil god, that doesn't mean they consider themselves evil. They're upholding the laws and tenants of their god(s), THEY'RE the only good guys, everyone else is wrong. A paladin could worship a lawful evil god of order, pacts, and servitude for example, right? They strive for a society without weakness or lies, and look at a lawful good god as though it's an evil hypocrite that encourages suffering only to gather more worshippers with the rare act of mercy. Not a single person believes they're evil. Even Stalin thought he was a good guy doing what's good and right for the people.
Tl;dr clerics can be evil so paladins can too because basic fricking reasoning npcs are incapable of.
paladins can be evil. take for example the oath of conquest you can swear yourself to a just empire that wants to eradicate evil that would be good but if you swear yourself to something akin to mordor you would definitly be seen as evil
The point is different settings have different rules, this has been the case since TSR started publishing settings and original FR had tall elves and said all divine classes must follow a deity.
It's about the new moral "values" pushed by certain groups today.
Zoomers unironically want to play Rippen Bloodfist, Paladin of Gorgoroz, God of Violence and Pain and Raping People In The Ass and at the same time expect to be the good guys, not in the anti-hero sort of way but in a legitimate, twisted vision of morality where if everything is grey and good and saintly people are le bad (perhaps zoomers skip the part where the good guys in the church of holiness are secretly evil as a trope) then people who are unabashedly evil may be actually good. It does feel like moronic doublethink but that's exactly what makes it plausible.
>Zoomers unironically want to play Rippen Bloodfist, Paladin of Gorgoroz, God of Violence and Pain and Raping People In The Ass and at the same time expect to be the good guys
Ah
The Warhammer way
Playing a champion of capital E Evil is pretty much the opposite of what you're describing, and it's pretty much 100% that motivations for wanting evil paladins are completely unrelated to what you're talking about.
>Neutral Good is focused on what it thinks is good, which is just a mismash of what Chaotic Good and Lawful Good think is good.
There is no "thinking" of Good. There is Good, and there is not Good, but it is always objective.
Even if there is objective Good, it doesn't follow from that that anyone would have perfect and infallible knowledge of Good.
Players can play evil characters.
Players can play paladins.
Evil gods exist in the setting.
Paladins get their powers from gods.
Evil paladins get their powers from evil gods.
Therefore players can play evil paladins that take their powers from evil gods.
IIRC, the original D&D Paladins were empowered by their dedication to the Alignments of Law and/or Good directly, with the "or" part being that I can't remember if they existed in any single-axis versions.
There's nothing about the process in question defining it as possible for *only* Law+Good, and indeed sufficient extremes of Evil and Chaos being fundamentally deforming have been a thing in *most* versions of D&D.
However, there's little of the Paladin's powerset that makes sense under anything else, as it's so thoroughly informed by the original Law+Good Super-Fighter version specifically.
The Paladin's mechanical conventions run into issues as a base class in addon-based permutation because inverting the Alignment invites onerous explanations for shared abilities.
What do you mean by an evil paladin because 5E pushed you pretty hard into certain roles depending on your subclass. That is not to say you can't work around them but most subclasses line up with an alignment pretty well.
Rather easily.
Paladins are warriors sworn to ethics that support the holy and righteous actions of holy host. Therefore they are empowered not by gods, but by righteousness itself. They channel pure good from the heavens to earth through their oaths and service.
Clerics just get their powers from sugar daddies that they blow for mana and spare chnage.
Because the paladin concept concerns and encapsulates a very specific archetype in the form of disciplined chivalric knights in the service of civilization and the forces of good, and the class as a whole is an extension of that.
Not him, but a "black knight" is a fighter plain and simple. Historically they were minor or disgraced nobles looking to get proper sponsorship. Narratively they are fallen paladins, murderhobos, or mysterious swordsman. The only black knight archtype that carries the traits of a typical paladin would be Mordred, who's powers originate from faeries, and woud probably be most akin to Oath of Ancients.
A disgraced or evil paladin is a fricking fighter.
Rather easily.
Paladins are warriors sworn to ethics that support the holy and righteous actions of holy host. Therefore they are empowered not by gods, but by righteousness itself. They channel pure good from the heavens to earth through their oaths and service.
Clerics just get their powers from sugar daddies that they blow for mana and spare chnage.
You dodged the question.
You said "It makes sense because I said so". > The earliest recorded instance of the word paladin in the English language dates to 1592, in Delia (Sonnet XLVI) by Samuel Daniel.[1] It entered English through the Middle French word paladin, which itself derived from the Latin palatinus, ultimately from the name of Palatine Hill — also translated as 'of the palace' in the Frankish title of Mayor of the Palace.[1] A presumptive Old French form *palaisin was already loaned into late Middle English as palasin in c.1400.
> Over time paladin came to refer to other high-level officials in the imperial, majestic and royal courts.[2] The word palatine, used in various European countries in the medieval and modern eras, has the same derivation.[2]
Also the "rigthousness itself" thing is another one of those aspects everyone in this particular camp tends to VOCALLY decry whenever it's brought up unless convenient.
Regular paladins already run on a fake dichotomy entirely separated from the origin of their taft, why then would evil paladins be a bother? Because it affronts the already wrong sensibilities you have regarding something entirely made up to begin with?
One of the few good things 5e has done is solve this by making their powers come from their oaths and devotion to their duties which all roughly line up with different alignments with Oathbreakes being corrupted and fallen Paladins
Regular paladins already run on a fake dichotomy entirely separated from the origin of their taft, why then would evil paladins be a bother? Because it affronts the already wrong sensibilities you have regarding something entirely made up to begin with?
Evil paladin is fine. To my dying breath I still don't like paladins whose oaths are to themselves. Should be to either a god or an external concept like Bushido or Chivalry. Not just >I swear to be a hero
Because then you can rationalize and justify so you never betray said oath.
I like oaths whose tenets are so mysterious that an outsider would perceive them as over forgiving, but its paladins recognize the deeper meanings as incredibly painful challenges to complete, so much so every waking moment is a ritual.
There have been "antipaladins" for as long as there have been paladins. In a game system where classes are broad concepts narrowed down into subclasses, there's no reason for them to be different.
The Paladin should be strictly an NPC-only thing that exist strictly to make you feel bad about how shit of a knight you are in comparison to him, you who will never see the Grail
Devoting yourself to a single god in general is stupid
It's fine and all for a priest who lives in a temple but a Paladin is a travelling knight, and there are lots of gods out there who need propitiation and worship
Like anyone who travels a lot, a Paladin should do worship to the local gods, especially when crossing the ocean, because not sacrificing to the sea gods is how you end up fricking drowning
Isn't a paladin just someone who fights for a god and upholding the rules/ideals said god holds it sounds weird because paladin is always assumed to be some sort of golden good boy knight
3.5 already had a class that was for all intents and purposes an evil paladin: the blackguard. It was almost the same as paladin except had to be Lawful Evil instead of Lawful Good and a few spells and abilities had the effect mirrored (Smite Good instead of Smite Evil, and aura that debuffs enemies instead of buffing allies, etc.), but for all intends and purposes it was a variant of the paladin class.
5th edition just did the logical step of not having two classes that are 90 % identical and just having the paladin class represent any martial/caster hybrid divine champion, regardless of their alignment. LG paladin is your traditional paladin while LE "paladin" would in lore be called a blackguard but just uses the same class with different specialization since they are so similar. As an added bonus it also lets you have other types of divine champions than the LG and LE one by letting you created additional specialization (like the Oath of Ancients is a nature/fae themed "paladin").
Also: LE, CG, and CN Paladins were all in 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, which named each of them. LG are Paladins of Honor, CG are Paladins of Freedom, LE are Paladins of Tyranny, and CG are Paladins of Slaughter.
>because it's recognizable.
no, it's to intentionally subvert the idea of Paladin so that troons may rejoice at the corruption of yet another good thing
Everything is a complex scheme by troons to these people, as they are the soccer moms of the modern day.
what's that? A problem older than (modern issue)? Modern issue must be behind it! Quick, everybody panic!
Wildly untrue. It was a marketing scheme from the beginning, anon. Appealing to midwits through the lowest common denominators and supporting whatever the current thing is is a tried and true recipe.
Everything is a complex scheme by troons to these people, as they are the soccer moms of the modern day.
what's that? A problem older than (modern issue)? Modern issue must be behind it! Quick, everybody panic!
Not even remotely. 4e already made a lot of the transition to the idea of Paladins being the divine champions of gods of any alignment. 5e just carried that over, along with a lot of other baggage from 4e.
This is because D&D is a combat focused dungeon crawl, so it doesn't make any sense to have 9 classes that are all named different things but otherwise extremely mechanically similar just to divide up the idea of a heavily armored guy who smites things with a weapon and divine magic by alignment.
If 5e were a proper roleplaying game, you might actually have a point.
Paladins are basically just crusaders, and evil crusaders have been a thing since the crusades.
one out of the several dozen lords who show up for the crusades actually tries to help constantinople, frick.
>Paladins are basically just crusaders
They are not. Their iconic power (laying on hands) as well as their general pureness comes from Parsifal and Galahad, who never crusaded.
>noooo, it's based on these specific knights, stop pointing out the similarities and obvious parallels with crusaders, especially as the concept developed
You know what? I feel that the only code Paladins should really obey ought to be the same as Clerics: > "Make deity happy."
That cuts out a lot of the cruft. Now we don't have to argue about how the Code words on top of that, and they don't have to behave like a Bioware Light Side protagonist. Then you also can't have the stupid 'conflict with deity' subplot.
Your patron gave you your powers. If you disagree, you get nothing when you stop serving him.
It's so much simpler! Less jumping through hoops.
The Anti-Paladin was first introduced in the pages of Dragon Magazine in the 1970s. You need to defend why they were first invented before asking 5Etards to defend why 3.5E made them common.
Got with my GM to talk about it with a character I was making. Half Orc (Chaotic Evil) paladin of Gond (Lawful Good) basically we did some in house lore type shit where he was compelled by some enchanted amulet or whatever he couldn't remove that allowed Gond to bend his will. Had to do saving throws a lot. It can work but I feel weird character builds need to have set backs/extra mechanics in order to make them make sense.
This whole argument only happens because D&D designers do not make up their minds on wherever classes are supposed to be archetypes of describe sources of power.
If you define the "paladin" class as just people who get magic powers from their ideology there is nothing wrong with it but if they are still supposed to play the thematic role of the paladin archetype regardless of their morality thats when it gets contradictory.
>This shit makes no zero sense, defend this 5egays.
Sure! MOST 5e Paladins are defined by their Subclass/Oath and those Subclasses/Oaths have what are called Tenets. Those Tenets are the thing that uphold you being a Paladin. Due to the way some of the Tenets are worded, you can in some cases uphold those Tenets and still be an Evil Aligned character. Some examples that I believe could absolutely be an Evil Paladin and still uphold their Tenets include: Oath of Conquest, Oath of Crown, Oath of Glory, Oath of Watchers, and the only subclass in 5e that has an actual RAW alignment restriction an Oathbreaker. All of those imo, can be evil and still uphold their Oaths without breaking their alignment.
Some Paladin subclasses don't make a ton of sense as 'Evil' characters: Oath of Devotion, Oath of Ancients, and Oath of Redemption all come to mind as Paladins that directly go against Evil in a way that if you actually are following the Tenets, I don't quite think you'd be able to call your character 'Evil' you could be 'Neutral' and still uphold those tenets however, you don't have to be 'Good' to be any Paladin.
This shit makes no zero sense, defend this 5egays.
Oh and its worth noting, Arkhan the Cruel is the character in OP. He's a Neutral Evil Oathbreaker Paladin/Path of The Berserker Barbarian who's also the Champion of The Lawful Evil queen of Dragons Tiamat. This checks out. Oathbreaker 100% have to be evil, they are effectively the 'Anti-Paladin' of 5e >An Oathbreaker is a paladin who breaks his or her sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition or serve an evil power. Whatever light burned in the paladin's heart has been extinguished. Only darkness remains. A paladin must be evil and at least 3rd level to become an Oathbreaker.
So this particular characters makes a lot of sense. IIRC this guy was also made before the Conquest Paladin subclass was a thing, and that also could have worked well for his character instead of Oathbreaker.
It's not specifically 5e thing. Evil Paladin was possible since at least 2e (with HoOA or DoMF).
antipaladins we’re the opposite of paladins, not evil paladins
they were cowardly backstabbers who avoided confrontation
I'm not talking antipaladins, I'm talking "regular" paladins getting shifted to Evil alignemnt.
Evil paladins are a thing way back into AD&D, within GM fiat.
Ie evil gigachad instead of good gigachad.
Albeit evil paladin should always be a Death Knight, as Orcus intended.
I've always looked at the Paladin features list and thought to myself, "you know, they really need to be able to use Power Word: Kill once per day".
>The cringe paladin
H-huh I'-i'll heal my al-allies... A-and g-give tiii-tithe
>The chad DEATH KNIGHT
Today I shall fireball as a level 20 caster.
>Today I shall fireball as a level 20 caster.
Which makes me think... How moronic would it be for a half caster class to have the ability to cast one 9th level spell as a capstone? For example the one you said, no utility, no choices, just one once per day frick you spell.
Depends on the edition, depends on the spell.
Death knights are just 6 flavors of "frick you, stand down." and are designed for that fricking people up.
Post AD&D, D&D is a very HP bloat heavy game, as you no longer end up with 9d10+33 HP at level 20 and instead end up with (assuming 5e and "average" (14) stats as before that it is even worse) 20d10+40 that alone is a 11d10 difference in HP.
It was (shitty) side content that could (easily) be ignored.
DM: "i don't allow evil paladins in my game"
Whoa...so hard
>WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF BIGOT?! AHH YOU'RE A CHRISTKEK AREN'T YOU, WELL GOD DOES NOT EXIST, THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE MORALITY, I'M TRANS BTW
unhinged
take meds
Blackguard isn't a paladin, Anon.
Even earlier, actually. Might as well b***h about how Wizards can cast Illusion spells now instead of having a specific Illusionist class.
>Might as well b***h about how Wizards can cast Illusion spells now instead of having a specific Illusionist class.
Yes.jpg
but anons, there is a specific illusionist class.
it's called arcane trickster
you are being INTENTIONALLY WRONG
(You)
Have you tried not playing DnD? Other game systems don't do this nonsense.
Look here man, Christmas and the countiuous existance of the Irish are real issues that needs to be tackled so that our lord's kingdom on this his earth can become manifest.
Cromwell unironically did nothing wrong. The English parliamentary system would not have survived had he not btfo'd the royalists. And he rightfully exposed catholic nobility as being a 5th column beholden to foreign interests.
Bruh, your Protestant queen is a member of the German Battenberg family and the Church of England doesn't even know what a woman is. I'm glad my ancestors left your shitty rock.
Chaotic evil characters who worship evil gods don't tend to make solemn oaths that heavily limit their behavior and force them to donate all of their money to charity. They make pacts for personal gain. Why are you fricking neckbeards incapable of understanding that evil characters are EVIL? It's not just the color of their jersey.
Evil characters absolutely can be fanatically devoted to causes and principles. Mixing real life examples with DnD's alignment system is probably ill-advises, and mentioning Nazis admittedly always feels kind of cheap, but I'd say that taking a look at some truly devoted Nazi war criminals gives several examples of people who were both evil as frick and deeply devoted to something other than their own personal benefit.
Yes, but their causes are not ones that would in any way justify a paladin's oaths. A fighter can make oaths with his dark gods and get rewards. An evil god can empower a cleric to spread war or whatever. There is no reason why it has to have a direct analog to the paladin, because there is no direct analog to the paladin oaths in an evil ideology.
That's the point here. Paladins are a very specific kind of warrior based on a very specific legend. They weren't supposed to be the blueprint for a new class of divinely empowered oath knights who all operate the same way. Basically it's an extension of the problem with classes since 3e, where there had to be a class for everything. Witches, shamans, sorcerers, swashbucklers, samurai, ninjas, etc, really have no reason to exist when they can just be variants of the base classes. And the same goes for paladins and barbarians.
As a complete tangent, it seems kind of ironic that 3e got this so wrong, since you could (in principle) just take feats, multiclass and take prestige classes to make your character match your concept. If anything, 3e should've had the lowest number of base classes possible. And then PF went and made it even worse. Now that I think of it, that's really the core flaw (other than the stupid treadmill of progression): so many kinds of options competing to be the ones that define your character.
Great Britain has a pretty short history of being ruled by English lines of kings.
the really hardcore brits who think being British is more important than being a person just love to be dominated by foreign royalty
frankly it's embarrassing to live on the same continental shelf as them and I wish brexit could have been a very literal movement
>the Church of England doesn't even know what a woman is
This should be funny, define woman
An adult human with XX chromosome pair.
Ok and so in the event of someone with xy or xxy chromsomes what do we call them? If what you say is true, why is it that most people never get chromosome tests, exchange results and use chromosomes to find a partner?
>o in the event of someone with xy or xxy chromsomes what do we call them?
A man. In the latter case, a man with a medical abnormality.
Well hang on there then lol define man, you dont get to weasel out of this.
Sounds like chromosomes are only one piece of the puzzle then. If men and women were defined by their chromosomes and all other facets incorporated into sex and gender were only as relevant as they reflected chromosomes; then why exactly is it that chromosomes werent discovered until the 1880s?
i already answered that question here.
Ok so then youre claiming phenotype defines whose a man and whose a woman, not chromosomes, as only phenotype is actually referenced and it does not 100% correspond to chromosomes which have never been used socially for gendering others.
because it's usually distinguishable by phenotype without genetic testing
>Cromwell unironically did nothing wrong
The Irish would disagree
The Irish have no value, so their opinion is also valueless.
aaaand we're back to evil
one Irish youtube attention prostitute is worth more than half of England tbh
vae victus
>implying fennian filth are worth keeping around
Except he set up bunch of moronic non-issues to distract Bongs until about 1890s, along with creating a perpetual clusterfrick in Ireland and Scotland
Not to mention the obvious
>Fully subjugate a land
>Act surprised the locals resist you, since you are fricking them over in every possible way
He ended the Edict of Expulsion, so he's one of the worst traitors in history.
>only the alignment of Lawful Good is capable of blessing champions fanatically devoted to this alignment, to fight for the Lawful Good alignment and spread the Lawful Good alignment
>Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil lack the power to bless a champion and their followers lack the fanaticism to be willing to fight for their alignment
>Lawful Good is uniquely capable of empowering and inspiring its champions
Hang on a minute, you're talking about 5e? There's nothing I can defend about that system, it's a dumpster fire. My solution is to replace Paladins with a Champion class, and have nine subclasses dependent on each alignment, Paladin being Lawful Good, Antipaladin being Chaotic Evil, and so on.
No.
Just 4, for the far extreme alignments. Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladins sworn to uphold a path at all costs.
Paladin[Lawful Good]
Champion[Chaotic Good]
Tyrant[Lawful Evil]
Ravager[Chaotic Evil]
Simple, balanced and effective.
>Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladins sworn to uphold a path at all costs.
That's moronic, if anything Neutral Good is the most extreme of all, because they're SOLELY focused on Good, whereas Lawful Good compromises the values of Good with the values of Lawfulness.
Incorrect. Neutral Good is focused on what it thinks is good, which is just a mismash of what Chaotic Good and Lawful Good think is good.
It is a grey zone in between wild freedom and bound devotion. It has neither the discipline of Law nor the courage of Chaos. It is just meh.
Like Neutral, but nicer.
>Neutral Good is focused on what it thinks is good, which is just a mismash of what Chaotic Good and Lawful Good think is good.
There is no "thinking" of Good. There is Good, and there is not Good, but it is always objective.
No. There is objective and subjective Good. They both exist. You can not deny fact.
>My solution is to replace Paladins with a Champion class, and have nine subclasses dependent on each alignment, Paladin being Lawful Good
>Just 4, for the far extreme alignments. Those that have some neutral in them are too indecisive and tolerant of vagueness to be paladin
Ah yes, the PF2e approach. The Champion class, embodying the martial arm of the various churches, and required to uphold the tenets of Evil or Good and the ethos of the god they serve.
With 6 subclasses based on good or evil. The three good ones are the LG Paladin, the NG Redeemer, and the CG Liberator. The three evil are the LE Tyrant, NE Desecrator, and CE Antipaladin. There are no neutral champions (so far).
Why not? Evil people are fully capable of commitment and devotion, evil champions of dark god and wicked causes make sense, and representing them as a separate class from a regular paladin seems like redundant and waste of wordcount.
Paladins should be he same alignment as their god, not arbitrarily set to lawful good. the idea that evil gods wouldn't empowered champions to their cause is moronic.
This guy gets it.
>empowered champions
That's called a cleric. Paladins are a very specific warrior archetype. Making them their own class is why there's so much conceptual overlap between them and clerics.
The point is that there are too many fricking classes, and paladins (and all other the paladin-like archetypes) should just be warrior archetypes/kits/subclasses/whatever you want to call them. Clerics are already heavily inspired by crusaders, so they are the actual class that represents what everyone is talking about when they talk about divinely empowered knights. Paladins are more like ideal of chivalry, with an emphasis on the faith part that sets them apart from other fighters who might also be knights.
Also, one of the huge conceptual problems here, even with the oath-based 5e concept, is that paladins are limited because Good demand high standards. Evil is attractive to the power hungry because of its lack of standards (or at the very least, standards you can twist and abuse, in the case of lawful evil). What would an evil oath look like? Do whatever you can to be more powerful? Ok, how would that be limiting to an evil paladin's playstyle? All characters are trying to become more powerful. Now you have one with a license to do whatever they want, because it says "be really evil" on their character sheet. At best, you could come up with some kind of contrivance like "must give away all wealth to evil cults or terrorist organizations" or something. Like, sure, there are idealistic evil people, who want to destroy the world etc, but then you have evil characters who can't be selfish and conniving. Why should an evil paladin not try as hard as possible to only pay lipservice to his oath? I'm not saying you couldn't come up with something that works, but whatever it is, it wouldn't really resemble a paladin anymore. It would be more like a warlock, someone who made an oath for power, but also chafes under it. Hey, maybe just use warlock?
>The point is that there are too many fricking classes
this is true but kind of irrelevant since they're going to keep adding classes as a selling point for supplement books
> Evil is attractive to the power hungry because of its lack of standards
you're conflating lawful with good and chaotic with evil. a paladin should still be lawful but they shouldn't have to be good
>What would an evil oath look like?
i literally had one included in that post. no mercy, do not tolerate opposition, might makes right. that's the only specifically evil one, though some others work as neutral (crown, glory, watchers)
> Why should an evil paladin not try as hard as possible to only pay lipservice to his oath?
because then they would fall?
>someone who made an oath for power, but also chafes under it.
that could describe a good paladin just as well
or you could write your evil paladin that they genuinely do believe in might makes right. there's plenty of evil characters who have a strict moral code that still allows them to kick puppies
>that could describe a good paladin just as well
No it fricking doesn't. The good paladin makes his oath out of genuine faith. Otherwise he's just a very devout fighter. The point is that these are dispositional differences. It's not that your evil oath isn't possible, but that the evil oath is in no way the analog of the paladin oath.
>you're conflating lawful with good and chaotic with evil. a paladin should still be lawful but they shouldn't have to be good
So only lawful evil paladin makes sense, correct. Good talk.
>too many fricking classes
>there's only 13 of them
I'd hate to see your opinion on 3rd edition
>What would an evil oath look like?
the only thing I can come with is if a good paladin turns to an evil god, and the evil god grants them powers that are essentially a parody of what they had. Lay on hands causing the person to wither away and die, aura of courage becoming aura of fear (I think oath breakers have this), ritual spells that reward depravity and acts of torture like an epstein island ceremony... Inversions specific to an oath would be cool too. Like an ex-ancients paladin having rituals that start unnaturally powerful wildfires, poison rivers or cause all the food in a large area to rot. Oath of glory paladins becoming slothful, gluttonous beasts who sleep 16 hours a day and have to eat people to keep their powers. Ex-watchers that summon abberations and fiends. That sort of thing.
Would be impossible to put this shit in a rulebook though,would be very game and DM dependent
5e tried to get away from the class bloat of earlier editions by making subclass bloat.
Now all warriors empowered by the divine end up being called paladins, where they may have been Avengers, Blackguards, Death Knights, or Wardens before.
Avenger weren't divine, tho
Nvm, they were divine, my bad
Fricked thing is you don't even need deity specific empowerment to be a paladin. Literally stick to an Oath of your choice and as long as you follow that Oath you are set. Taking the Oath of Vengence route from the CRB could very easily have you be an Evil paladin. Straight up villain territory, just do your smiting on shit that the common folk hate with zero exceptions and you will still be following the path. So going full on Punisher mode against thieves, highway men, and the like regardless of the reasons they profess to why they resorted to such actions (need medicine, item, etc to help their loved ones) and you just smite the frickers pelvis out their forehead? All good RAW. So, yeah, pretty easy to go evil paladin.
Sometimes a man just wants to NYAAAAAA
I imagine evil paladins to be like endgame inquisitors in 40k, so fixated on the goal that they no longer can comprehend that the means they use to achieve it are no different from that of their foes.
Evil Paladins are like Good Paladins but they're evil.
>ancients paladin kicks a tree
>becomes oathbreaker
>makes no zero sense
You're right. There's not a single aspect of it that makes zero sense. No matter how you look at it, it at least makes a little bit of sense. Well said. Good talk.
the oaths are an improvement imo
it makes no sense to tie a class to an alignment
are the other gods just not as strong as the lawful good ones?
>it makes no sense to tie a class to an alignment
Paladins were recognized as regularly being the most powerful classes, with high survivability and damage output that was usually 2nd-place at worst. To balance it, the idea was to tie their exemplary abilities to an outside force empowering them but also tying them to a set of high standards that would leave them without a class if they broke them. To further limit this, it was decided it was Lawful Good gods that set such standards.
It was not just Paladins, but other classes tended to have certain alignment restrictions for a combination of controlling power and flavor. Monks were Lawful because of the strictness of training, Druids had to be some manner of Neutral since they had some manner of standoffishness from societal concerns, etc.
That first tenet reminds me of my pacifist homebrew in 3e, if I decided to thoroughly humiliate you with it you'd be trapped in a staggered condition for months.
You missed the 5e general.
Yes, I do play a lawful evil dragonborn paladin of a chaotic evil dragon goddess, how could you tell?
Evil paladins are an oxymoron
>what is an evil god
They let murderhobos feel 'righteous' and that they have moral fibre
How the frick would playing not only an explicitly evil character but an actual champion of evil let anyone feel righteous or moral? Explain your logic, please.
Evil and good are subjective.
That's what evil people believe to justify their actions. That's why I laugh at anyone who says "everyone believes what they're doing is right." Maybe some evil people do. But most evil people don't believe in good and evil as real concepts, or believe it's all subjective.
When someone tries to steal your shit, you don't say "it's not objective true that you shouldn't steal my shit, but I'll be angry if you do so you shouldn't." Fricking absurd.
Actions that may seem evil from your point of view may be good from someones else's point of view.
You're just repeating yourself.
That's because good and evil cannot be defined.
>But most evil people don't believe in good and evil as real concepts, or believe it's all subjective.
Most evil people are fully convinced they are champions of good. Especially the ones who say that people that dont follow their specific brand of objective morality are all evil and must be destroyed.
>Most evil people are fully convinced they are champions of good.
Have you literally ever listened to a wiretapped conversation between gangsters, drug cartel people, traffickers, crooked politicians, murderers, and other human garbage? Most of the time it's fricking disgusting to listen to. You're probably mistaking how they represent themselves to the plebs with how they actually are.
Just because you are delivering multiple necessary services to Wall Street and the conservative establishment doesn't mean you can't have fun.
Not in DND though.
>Like law and order, the second set of attitudes is also divided into three parts. These parts describe, more or less, a character's moral outlook; they are his internal guideposts to what is right or wrong.
>Good characters are just that. They try to be honest, charitable, and forthright. People are not perfect, however, so few are good all the time. There are always occasional failings and weaknesses. A good person, however, worries about his errors and normally tries to correct any damage done.
>Remember, however, that goodness has no absolute values. Although many things are commonly accepted as good (helping those in need, protecting the weak), different cultures impose their own interpretations on what is good and what is evil.
>different cultures impose their own interpretations on what is good and what is evil
That's cool, but how can you smite a succubus if she doesn't consider herself evil? That's the way she lives. It just contradicts the rules.
a succubus who doesn't consider herself evil isn't a succubus, she's a chaotic good fertility spirit.
slay queen
>That's cool, but how can you smite a succubus if she doesn't consider herself evil
That's the secret
Paladins can smite whoever the want
That's the secret
To a good Paladin, EVERYTHING is evil
The correct answer is that smite evil is gay videogamey bullshit introduced by WoTC. No real D+D paladin has the ability to smite evil, not even a Skills and Powers AD&D Paladin.
Evil Paladins have literally been in the game for decades.
And people said it was stupid back then, too. Also, variant = optional, if you weren't aware. That's why it's not in the PHB.
Everything in the PHB is optional as well, homosexual.
You want me to justify evil paladins? Here's your justification.
Your justification, just like your idea, is garbage. Obviously nobody can stop you from running shit shit, but it's still shit and you can't stop us from telling you so.
Just call it some other name than paladin, if that eases your autism.
It's an oath bound follower of an evil god, who strives to live as a paragon of that gods ideals.
It's an evil paladin, for a lack of a better name.
All paladins are evil, you can't serve lae and be good. Lawful good is just lawful evil with a thick propaganda coat of paint.
Law is justice. Good is mercy. The synthesis of perfect jutice and perfect mercy is found in Christ. Ergo, Lawful good is the objectively correct alignment.
Based as hell and know what alignments are
>p*p*sts exulting in violence in the name of an avowed pacifist
>Christ was a pacifist!
>My name? Schmolo Goldenburg why you ask go- I mean, fellow christian!
Hopefully you are just israeli and not an actual, unironic protestant.
Not israeli, but I was circumcised in accordance to the israeli books. I've read them, too. There are hundreds of verses preaching peace and forgiveness, now go ahead and tell me about how christ driving out the moneylenders and telling men to sell their cloak and buy a sword is a call to take up arms against evildoers, kill them in their homes, and loot their corpses. You are not an Israelite called to battle against the Canaanites and you will never be, cope.
oy vey
And you are not a Hebrew under Roman rule. Most of Christ's teachings were not universal, they were advice for the people he was talking to in the moment. To give an example, let me ask, how could you love thy neighbor as you love yourself, and yet remain pacifist, in the midst of an invasion by enemies who slaughter all those who they find?
>telling men to sell their cloak and buy a sword is a call to take up arms against evildoers, kill them in their homes, and loot their corpses.
But that is exactly what it is...
it's not, because in context he's sending his apostles out to preach when he tells them to buy a sword.
he's saying pack a piece to defend yourself from highwaymen, not go leave a trail of blood through the countryside. Not even a week prior he was scolding peter for attacking a roman guard that was arresting him for execution.
I'm not even christian anymore, but please actually read your bible if you're going to claim to follow it.
>Not israeli, but I was circumcised in accordance to the israeli books.
Did Mr. Kellogg also write the St.James Bible?
handrubbing detected.
was a pacifist!
it was just a little whipping
>Christ would have been a capitalist!
nuke the GOP national convention from orbit
Big difference between overthrowing some stalls and actually hurting someone.
He chased them with a whip, anon. I highly doubt it was just for the cool sound of it cracking in the air.
Jesus hätte euch die Fresse mit einer Peitsche eingeschlagen.
Hätte er? Ich bezweifle das. Und jetzt halt die Schnauze, du eierloser Hurensohn.
>whipping greedy israelites is an act of passivism
Got it, thanks for permission rabbi!
>an avowed pacifist
Confirmed for never having read the bible.
something something go buy a sword.
"for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword"
"I come bearing not peace, but a sword."
God is Neutral Good.
The Creator did not make a world of randomness. All is as it should be. What you see as randomness is merely a dance so complex that your mind can not fathom it. You are a child before him and always shall be.
God is Lawful Good.
>The Creator did not make a world of randomness
Nor did he make a world of strict unalterable rules.
Yes. Yes he did.
Go jump off a roof and tell me how much you were able to get the Creator to bend the rules for you.
Go work on the Sabbath and tell me how God hasn't smote you for it.
If you think that the rules the Creator made were written by some israelite in the desert 2000 years ago, you are an idiot.
The rules the Creator made are unalterable and immutable. They are permanent in a way that we are just beginning to truly understand. What some dirty, primitive israelite thought was a rule, has next to no bearing on the actual rules that were made.
>Rules like bedtime are baaaaaaad!
Never understood how so many people fail to grasp this concept.
Paladins are essentially knights to a deity, right? They're militant clerics. Clerics can be evil, so why not paladins? If a person worships what others would consider an evil god, that doesn't mean they consider themselves evil. They're upholding the laws and tenants of their god(s), THEY'RE the only good guys, everyone else is wrong. A paladin could worship a lawful evil god of order, pacts, and servitude for example, right? They strive for a society without weakness or lies, and look at a lawful good god as though it's an evil hypocrite that encourages suffering only to gather more worshippers with the rare act of mercy. Not a single person believes they're evil. Even Stalin thought he was a good guy doing what's good and right for the people.
Tl;dr clerics can be evil so paladins can too because basic fricking reasoning npcs are incapable of.
>Paladins are essentially knights to a deity, right?
Apparently failing to grasp the concept does not abate.
Define evil.
paladins can be evil. take for example the oath of conquest you can swear yourself to a just empire that wants to eradicate evil that would be good but if you swear yourself to something akin to mordor you would definitly be seen as evil
SCAG says FR paladins still have to be lawful good, but even WotC ignores that and won't reprint that factoid again.
SCAG was written by morons, what's your point?
The point is different settings have different rules, this has been the case since TSR started publishing settings and original FR had tall elves and said all divine classes must follow a deity.
someone must represent LGBT values
It's about the new moral "values" pushed by certain groups today.
Zoomers unironically want to play Rippen Bloodfist, Paladin of Gorgoroz, God of Violence and Pain and Raping People In The Ass and at the same time expect to be the good guys, not in the anti-hero sort of way but in a legitimate, twisted vision of morality where if everything is grey and good and saintly people are le bad (perhaps zoomers skip the part where the good guys in the church of holiness are secretly evil as a trope) then people who are unabashedly evil may be actually good. It does feel like moronic doublethink but that's exactly what makes it plausible.
none of that is actually reflected in either the rules of the game or how people play it.
go leave.
shut up troony
>Zoomers unironically want to play Rippen Bloodfist, Paladin of Gorgoroz, God of Violence and Pain and Raping People In The Ass and at the same time expect to be the good guys
Ah
The Warhammer way
Playing a champion of capital E Evil is pretty much the opposite of what you're describing, and it's pretty much 100% that motivations for wanting evil paladins are completely unrelated to what you're talking about.
Even if there is objective Good, it doesn't follow from that that anyone would have perfect and infallible knowledge of Good.
Paladins are the mythological knight, which have both good and evil examples.
Players can play evil characters.
Players can play paladins.
Evil gods exist in the setting.
Paladins get their powers from gods.
Evil paladins get their powers from evil gods.
Therefore players can play evil paladins that take their powers from evil gods.
Simple as.
>Paladin
>Doesn't serve Charlamagne
Explain this.
well first off, a paladin would probably know how to properly spell Charlemagne.
No, I meant the other Charlamagne.
Big Chuck?
"Charles le Magne".
Because it’s cool, frick you
>Paladins are the warriors of the gods
>There are evil gods
>Therefore, there are Evil paladins
There.
paladin to an evil god?
Lawful evil is a thing.
paladins serve gods, and there are evil gods with servants, therefore there are evil paladins.
it really isn't that hard to understand
IIRC, the original D&D Paladins were empowered by their dedication to the Alignments of Law and/or Good directly, with the "or" part being that I can't remember if they existed in any single-axis versions.
There's nothing about the process in question defining it as possible for *only* Law+Good, and indeed sufficient extremes of Evil and Chaos being fundamentally deforming have been a thing in *most* versions of D&D.
However, there's little of the Paladin's powerset that makes sense under anything else, as it's so thoroughly informed by the original Law+Good Super-Fighter version specifically.
The Paladin's mechanical conventions run into issues as a base class in addon-based permutation because inverting the Alignment invites onerous explanations for shared abilities.
What do you mean by an evil paladin because 5E pushed you pretty hard into certain roles depending on your subclass. That is not to say you can't work around them but most subclasses line up with an alignment pretty well.
they worship an evil god
>Divine warrior in service to a god
>Evil gods exist
Not very complicated
>clerics to evil gods make sense
>Paladins serving evil goals don't
Explain how this makes sense.
Rather easily.
Paladins are warriors sworn to ethics that support the holy and righteous actions of holy host. Therefore they are empowered not by gods, but by righteousness itself. They channel pure good from the heavens to earth through their oaths and service.
Clerics just get their powers from sugar daddies that they blow for mana and spare chnage.
Because the paladin concept concerns and encapsulates a very specific archetype in the form of disciplined chivalric knights in the service of civilization and the forces of good, and the class as a whole is an extension of that.
so I guess you've never heard of a 'Black Knight', then?
Here's a hint: it doesn't mean a knight who's really into hip-hop music.
Not him, but a "black knight" is a fighter plain and simple. Historically they were minor or disgraced nobles looking to get proper sponsorship. Narratively they are fallen paladins, murderhobos, or mysterious swordsman. The only black knight archtype that carries the traits of a typical paladin would be Mordred, who's powers originate from faeries, and woud probably be most akin to Oath of Ancients.
A disgraced or evil paladin is a fricking fighter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_knight
You dodged the question.
You said "It makes sense because I said so".
> The earliest recorded instance of the word paladin in the English language dates to 1592, in Delia (Sonnet XLVI) by Samuel Daniel.[1] It entered English through the Middle French word paladin, which itself derived from the Latin palatinus, ultimately from the name of Palatine Hill — also translated as 'of the palace' in the Frankish title of Mayor of the Palace.[1] A presumptive Old French form *palaisin was already loaned into late Middle English as palasin in c.1400.
> Over time paladin came to refer to other high-level officials in the imperial, majestic and royal courts.[2] The word palatine, used in various European countries in the medieval and modern eras, has the same derivation.[2]
Also the "rigthousness itself" thing is another one of those aspects everyone in this particular camp tends to VOCALLY decry whenever it's brought up unless convenient.
Exactly.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_knight
Yes, exactly, that's a great example of what wouldn't qualify, good catch!
One of the few good things 5e has done is solve this by making their powers come from their oaths and devotion to their duties which all roughly line up with different alignments with Oathbreakes being corrupted and fallen Paladins
Basically, imagine a Paladin, but evil.
Regular paladins already run on a fake dichotomy entirely separated from the origin of their taft, why then would evil paladins be a bother? Because it affronts the already wrong sensibilities you have regarding something entirely made up to begin with?
quints of truth, OP blown the frick out
found the evil paladin
Please, evil paladins are low tier.
that would explain quint 6s. that's 2 more 6s than even 666.
why do you think it's impossible to have a paladin that follows an evil god or an evil oath?
it's been a thing since B/X they were called Avengers.
Evil paladin is fine. To my dying breath I still don't like paladins whose oaths are to themselves. Should be to either a god or an external concept like Bushido or Chivalry. Not just
>I swear to be a hero
Because then you can rationalize and justify so you never betray said oath.
no oath is like that except for the already selfish and evil Oathbreaker. Every oath has specific tenets that must be abided by.
I like oaths whose tenets are so mysterious that an outsider would perceive them as over forgiving, but its paladins recognize the deeper meanings as incredibly painful challenges to complete, so much so every waking moment is a ritual.
There have been "antipaladins" for as long as there have been paladins. In a game system where classes are broad concepts narrowed down into subclasses, there's no reason for them to be different.
It's not specifically 5e thing. Evil Paladin was possible since at least 3.5 (with Unearthed Arcana)
The Paladin should be strictly an NPC-only thing that exist strictly to make you feel bad about how shit of a knight you are in comparison to him, you who will never see the Grail
antipaladins in fact exist and have for a while
paladins devoting themselves to a single god is the stupid part rather than good or evil as a whole
Devoting yourself to a single god in general is stupid
It's fine and all for a priest who lives in a temple but a Paladin is a travelling knight, and there are lots of gods out there who need propitiation and worship
Like anyone who travels a lot, a Paladin should do worship to the local gods, especially when crossing the ocean, because not sacrificing to the sea gods is how you end up fricking drowning
>there's a temple to another God in this town
>you get to make a Prayer of Opportunity
>Wheeeerever I lay my hands
>that's my chuuuuurch
Isn't a paladin just someone who fights for a god and upholding the rules/ideals said god holds it sounds weird because paladin is always assumed to be some sort of golden good boy knight
Classic LG paladins just weren't generating enough controversy.
without much regard to what actually makes someone a true martyr, yes, in the manner than words are things that anyone can say
most people have read some bible verses without even realizing it
3.5 already had a class that was for all intents and purposes an evil paladin: the blackguard. It was almost the same as paladin except had to be Lawful Evil instead of Lawful Good and a few spells and abilities had the effect mirrored (Smite Good instead of Smite Evil, and aura that debuffs enemies instead of buffing allies, etc.), but for all intends and purposes it was a variant of the paladin class.
5th edition just did the logical step of not having two classes that are 90 % identical and just having the paladin class represent any martial/caster hybrid divine champion, regardless of their alignment. LG paladin is your traditional paladin while LE "paladin" would in lore be called a blackguard but just uses the same class with different specialization since they are so similar. As an added bonus it also lets you have other types of divine champions than the LG and LE one by letting you created additional specialization (like the Oath of Ancients is a nature/fae themed "paladin").
Evil Paladins shout not be a thing because they are antithetical to the entire idea of what a Paladin is. Change my mind
I've always called them blackguards and they make perfect sense, gaston from bueaty and the beast would make a great evil paladin.
What's an evil god's champion called then?
Also: LE, CG, and CN Paladins were all in 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, which named each of them. LG are Paladins of Honor, CG are Paladins of Freedom, LE are Paladins of Tyranny, and CG are Paladins of Slaughter.
>This shit makes no zero sense
>no zero
That means it makes some sense.
They work for an evil god?
They shouldn't be called Paladins in 5e. They should be Champions. They only picked Paladins because it's recognizable.
and then name Devotion paladin?
>because it's recognizable.
no, it's to intentionally subvert the idea of Paladin so that troons may rejoice at the corruption of yet another good thing
No one knew that 5e was going to be the wild success it was today. It wasn't picked for troon points.
Everything is a complex scheme by troons to these people, as they are the soccer moms of the modern day.
what's that? A problem older than (modern issue)? Modern issue must be behind it! Quick, everybody panic!
Wildly untrue. It was a marketing scheme from the beginning, anon. Appealing to midwits through the lowest common denominators and supporting whatever the current thing is is a tried and true recipe.
>a troon projects, episode #482710
>everything is a complex scheme by troons to these people
>YEAH, WELL YOU MUST BE A TROON
lol, /misc/trannies wrecked again.
Not even remotely. 4e already made a lot of the transition to the idea of Paladins being the divine champions of gods of any alignment. 5e just carried that over, along with a lot of other baggage from 4e.
This is because D&D is a combat focused dungeon crawl, so it doesn't make any sense to have 9 classes that are all named different things but otherwise extremely mechanically similar just to divide up the idea of a heavily armored guy who smites things with a weapon and divine magic by alignment.
If 5e were a proper roleplaying game, you might actually have a point.
I feel like paladin works as a decent catch all for heavily armored warrior with divine empowerment.
Paladins are basically just crusaders, and evil crusaders have been a thing since the crusades.
one out of the several dozen lords who show up for the crusades actually tries to help constantinople, frick.
>Paladins are basically just crusaders
They are not. Their iconic power (laying on hands) as well as their general pureness comes from Parsifal and Galahad, who never crusaded.
>noooo, it's based on these specific knights, stop pointing out the similarities and obvious parallels with crusaders, especially as the concept developed
>obvious parallels with crusaders
Like what? Being armored guys with swords who have no holy powers and mostly fight Greeks, Saracens, and the French?
mostly the constant religious battling.
And the neverending deus vult memes by paladin enjoyers.
You know what? I feel that the only code Paladins should really obey ought to be the same as Clerics:
> "Make deity happy."
That cuts out a lot of the cruft. Now we don't have to argue about how the Code words on top of that, and they don't have to behave like a Bioware Light Side protagonist. Then you also can't have the stupid 'conflict with deity' subplot.
Your patron gave you your powers. If you disagree, you get nothing when you stop serving him.
It's so much simpler! Less jumping through hoops.
The Anti-Paladin was first introduced in the pages of Dragon Magazine in the 1970s. You need to defend why they were first invented before asking 5Etards to defend why 3.5E made them common.
Got with my GM to talk about it with a character I was making. Half Orc (Chaotic Evil) paladin of Gond (Lawful Good) basically we did some in house lore type shit where he was compelled by some enchanted amulet or whatever he couldn't remove that allowed Gond to bend his will. Had to do saving throws a lot. It can work but I feel weird character builds need to have set backs/extra mechanics in order to make them make sense.
why couldn’t they just be renamed dark knights? anti paladin and evil paladin sounds stupid
This whole argument only happens because D&D designers do not make up their minds on wherever classes are supposed to be archetypes of describe sources of power.
If you define the "paladin" class as just people who get magic powers from their ideology there is nothing wrong with it but if they are still supposed to play the thematic role of the paladin archetype regardless of their morality thats when it gets contradictory.
All these arguments could be avoided by refluffing the Paladin as a Knight
That's what Fighters are for.
>This shit makes no zero sense, defend this 5egays.
Sure! MOST 5e Paladins are defined by their Subclass/Oath and those Subclasses/Oaths have what are called Tenets. Those Tenets are the thing that uphold you being a Paladin. Due to the way some of the Tenets are worded, you can in some cases uphold those Tenets and still be an Evil Aligned character. Some examples that I believe could absolutely be an Evil Paladin and still uphold their Tenets include: Oath of Conquest, Oath of Crown, Oath of Glory, Oath of Watchers, and the only subclass in 5e that has an actual RAW alignment restriction an Oathbreaker. All of those imo, can be evil and still uphold their Oaths without breaking their alignment.
Some Paladin subclasses don't make a ton of sense as 'Evil' characters: Oath of Devotion, Oath of Ancients, and Oath of Redemption all come to mind as Paladins that directly go against Evil in a way that if you actually are following the Tenets, I don't quite think you'd be able to call your character 'Evil' you could be 'Neutral' and still uphold those tenets however, you don't have to be 'Good' to be any Paladin.
Oh and its worth noting, Arkhan the Cruel is the character in OP. He's a Neutral Evil Oathbreaker Paladin/Path of The Berserker Barbarian who's also the Champion of The Lawful Evil queen of Dragons Tiamat. This checks out. Oathbreaker 100% have to be evil, they are effectively the 'Anti-Paladin' of 5e
>An Oathbreaker is a paladin who breaks his or her sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition or serve an evil power. Whatever light burned in the paladin's heart has been extinguished. Only darkness remains. A paladin must be evil and at least 3rd level to become an Oathbreaker.
So this particular characters makes a lot of sense. IIRC this guy was also made before the Conquest Paladin subclass was a thing, and that also could have worked well for his character instead of Oathbreaker.