>only humans should be paladins just as Gygax intended
 Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
 Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
>only humans should be paladins just as Gygax intended
>only humans should be paladins just as Gygax intended
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
Yes
I’m now in favor of race-as-class systems for this reason.
Counterpoint:
Aribeth was the worst character in Neverwinter Nights.
Yeah, but her armor almost shows cleavage.
You are wrong!
Tomi Undergallows, Fenthick Moss, Xanos Messsarmos and Dorna Trapspringer exist.
Deekin is the best but he can also be considered the worst because he had a Drizzt effect where he inspired a lot of irl kobold homosexualry and fetishism. A classic example of how lool randumb coomer autists with fetishes will ruin everything hobby related
And yet, a character like her couldn’t exist in BG because of charisma requirements that only humans could fulfill. Has there ever been a good explanation for this?
>because of charisma requirements that only humans could fulfill.
Huh?
In 2e, Paladins require 17 CHA. Half elves have no problem with that. In fact, Helves can be Enchanters, which also require 17 CHA.
Because Paladin orders are a human thing and they don't accept non humans. It's weird you give BG as an example yourself but asked that question. Have you never played with Mazzy, she constantly seethes about it IIRC
What if they where an elf thing as well? Maybe they taught the humans how to be Lawful Good?
It isn't just being LG and worshipping a god, it's part of being a paladin order and those are invented by humans and don't accept non humans, used to at least. It reminds me of WoW, Stormwind humans can be paladins because they had paladin orders and paladin culture for years. But Gilnean ones can't, they never had a paladin order, instead they have a tradition of being druids. And these two are even same species. If you want BG specific examples you can try taking Anomen, Keldorn and Mazzy with you they should have conversations about it
>Aribeth_de_Tylmarande
Aribeth is half human. and Spoiler, she couldn't handle being a paladin an fell anyway. So you counter yourself sir.
Can't you potentially redeem her in the second expansion?
Voi vitun Ari-Petteri!
Counterpoint: Aribeth is a slag
Half-elf, therefore half-human
idk, might let it slip
You sure convinced me!
Nah, that's boring just like every instance of race or gender locked classes. You just end up with a bunch of copycats consisting of either metagamers or people forced into playing a race they don't actually want to play in order to play the class.
Yes, if paladins were the only humans and all the non-paladin shitters were genocided, humanity would be better off.
>elf features for elves, dwarf features for dwarfs, paladin features for everybody
frickin liberal bullshit man
>not allowing humans to play the dwarf class
I know this sets off a dozen mary sue flags but I want to run this character someday
>Lawful Evil Tiefling Paladin
>Ancestors swore to a devil that in return for being made nobles, all tiefling descendants(they get born occasionally because of the hellish corruption from the pact) will go straight to Avernus on death and fight in the Blood War
>Young Lucas, noted tiefling descendant, thought it'd be fricking sick to go to Hell and kill demons forever
>Trained a shit ton
>Went to Watcher Paladin school to learn the most efficient way to make everyone, primarily demons, frick off back to their home plane
>Joins an adventurer party because he wants to throw himself into the toughest fights, to either come out stronger or die trying
>Doesn't fear death, only fears not being strong enough for Avernus's toughest battles
Call me a homosexual all you want, I am going to play a shounen protagonist and it is going to be fricking sick
The character itself is good, it just feels to me that it would work better as a fighter or a gish than a paladin.
Someone with a lust for power probably wouldn't want to be a paladin, but they can be a fighter who trained with paladins and your eventual GM would probably like that better.
Since 5e has weird stupid paladins that adhere to a specific code rather than an alignment or god, I figured it'd work out somehow if I justified it as "Hell's version of a Watcher Paladin". I can actually do any class with the character idea depending on what the party needs.
>Party needs a rogue
Play an assassin, training to sneak up on and eliminate vital leadership in any Demon horde
>Party needs a mage
Play an Abjurer, professional cosmic racist to send all invaders back to their home plane
>Party needs a bard
Play a drill sergeant, instead of music I heal party members by screaming GET OFF THE GROUND MAGGOT, and also I will know every story and tidbit of lore about the Blood War that was ever written
I originally got the idea from Pathfinder's Hell Knights, but Pathfinder doesn't have a Blood War so I can't justify the pact.
If it's 3.5 there are a lot of variant features for paladins that would make the class far better suited to the cause, and it's very possible to trade out nearly every supernatural and magical feature to become a fighter-with-class-features that is 95% mundane but amazingly good at murdering demons and devils. You'd need a DM that enjoys catering to player goals to get very far, though, unless your party is fine with a standard-issue Shock Trooper build that turns into a Manyshot shotgunner whenever "evil outsiders" pop up.
If you do this in Pathfinder, there's an in-universe group called the Hell Knights that are lawful-whatever roughriders with Smite Chaos. In 1e, killing a demon in solo combat is required to unlock the class.
Hell Knights are specifically lawful. You can be a lawful neutral Hell Knight, but your order is LE.
Well, depends on the order. Godclaw was founded by an LG Pyre Knight who joined the first crusade, and sought to create a unified religious philosophy to promote order and battle the forces of chaos. Pike was founded by a bunch of ranchers and townsfolk who wanted to protect people from monster attacks, and continued doing so even after the Thrunes seized power and tried ordering them to disband.
Gygax really wanted to justify a human dominated world through game mechanics.
Yeah well turns out 100 percent of potential RPG players are, in fact, humans.
Given Furries play D&D I can confirm that your statement is demonstrably false.
furries are still human, even if they aren't people
Isn't that because of Holger Carlsen?
Correct. Paladins are clearly the enforcers of the repressive feudal aristocracy.
You sound like a poorgay/dysgenic loser with no noble blood
Gotta love those Britbong peasant genes
I'd just like it if paladins were actually paladins and not something powered by an oath. LG requirement and sworn to a LG deity. Make Oathkeepers something separate and take away the paladin spells from them.
It helped differentiate them from clerics though
Paladins actually being paladins means being knights with a heavy emphasis on romantic chivalry, not priests under a different name. Paladins were originally based on the peers of Charlemagne and the knights of the round table. They didn't get power from a church or a god.
>Paladins were originally based on the peers of Charlemagne and the knights of the round table.
oh look its a bullshitting contest
The first several iterations of the class literally had to follow an idealized form of chivalry. Their restriction was not "be a priest". They were not a variant cleric. They were a fighter+ who had to be chivalric. And not just pretend chivalric, but actual hard line, no compromises full blown chivalry. They weren't even allowed to openly associate with chaotic or evil characters.
Dumbfrick
Go check the Greyhawk booklet.
They didn't even fricking get cleric spells in their first publication! They had detect evil, lay on hands (heal HP or disease), dispel evil, and disease immunity. And of course they'd get the horse. Other than that they were a subclass of the Fighting Man.
I actually agree with you for the most part, I just am fine with paladins inheriting some religious connotations as being necessary. The stories paladins of Charlemagne and the knights of the Grail were coming out of heavily religious connotations of a France that had participated in the crusades. Roland is wielding a sword filled with relics. Charlemagne himself is portrayed as a new David or a new Joshua, and wielding the lance of Longinus in the stories. Percival and Galahad are searching for the holy grail. Most of it is like that. Paladin orders are meant to be conceptually closer to ideal versions of crusader orders than to regular monastic orders and I don't think they should be seen as priests at all, but they're far from being reducible to simply people who keep an oath. Although it probably doesn't help your case that Charlemagne's paladins can include archbishop Turpin but that's an exception and not a universal one.
I don't much like crusader orders though so I'm fine with other models, so long as they are honorable servants of good powers with a religious element, involving an oath. Varangians who are dutifully serving a lawful Christian emperor by oath, even if they personally lack much understanding of Christianity like some of the distant traveling norse of the time. I prefer it if there's a king or emperor above them, or if they have some authority. The model of the old testament judge Samson is a great inspiration for the paladin, fulfilling the purpose to his nation and God, complete with falling when he breaks all his vows and arguably being restored when he goes to fulfill his purpose in the end. Lancelot's fall was straight based on his. He wasn't a priest, but he was a warrior with vows to God to fulfill in a culture where war was understood as involving the spiritual. I agree they should be distinguished from clerics, but I think that clerics are the ones who need to be more tied to the actual elements that made clerics distinct.
>Wielding the lance of Longinus
I thought he wielded a sword called Joyeuse, which had a piece of the lance in the hilt?
Here have an elf paladin
>most generic race
>most generic class
>most generic setting
Please, tell me more about this game you never played.
I have a unique idea
Dragonborn Paladin under the Platinum Cadre
Why were only humans paladins anyway?
It's just a human culture thing, like elven bladesingers and dwarven battle ragers
Non-humans in very early D&D had their race as their class. So an elf was already doing wizard like things, stapling paladin benefits on top would have been overkill.
Of course later editions did away with tying leveling to race so it stopped being a problem, but at the time it did make sense.
Because races used to have different cultures in DnD that dictated what classes they could take. Gnomes could only take illusionist spec as a wizard, dwarves couldn't be wizards at all etc. Humans obviously got the most shit because their "gimmick" was being versatile.
We live in 2023 so nowadays everyone has to be homogenized or else twitter users will yell at you.
Cuz humans didn't get SHIT back in the day, their feature was a total lack of restrictions which would lead to versatility, but this was back before builds were really a thing, so a handful of things had to be exclusive to humans.
mfw chuds won't let me play dwarven defender as a half orc.
Nah. Lupin and rakasta can choose to be Fighters, so they can be Paladins from ninth level onwards (or Avengers, if they align with Chaos).
Yes. Also levelcaps for nonhumans, they're supposed to be NPCs
Not NPCs, they're meant to be minorities. Which is even more based.
Aesthetically, I agree. Other races should have their own equivalents of their own soldiers of whatever patron deity they have though.