What does a Paladin do before becoming one?

[Beandip]

This may be a simple thing but my mind is drawing a blank. How does one become a Paladin? Born into nobility and therefore automatically one? Do you become one much like being Knighted? Be some kind of apprentice first? I cannot find any posts regarding this nor any web sites. If you could direct me, I would be grateful. The guides do not spell out any background options or ideas.

[Scots Dragon]

Read a book called The Deed of Paksenarrion, written by Elizabeth Moon.

[Glimbur]

Note: the entire post is my opinion, and not backed by any source book.

To me, a Paladin is someone who fights for justice. Maybe he knew his calling when he was stopping bullies as a child. Maybe she found it later, after her home town was burned by raiders while he was at market. Maybe he found it late in life, after long years of experience at court made him dream of a better way. Maybe she became a paladin in her twilight years, due to the birth of a grandchild or a burning desire to fix everything she found to be broken in a long life of injustice and regret. What matters is the desire for justice, and improvement of the world. The martial order, the devotion to a god (Hieronius, usually), and the shiny armor come later.

If your question is, instead, how does someone with the flame of justice become a full-fledged paladin, then it depends on the knightly order they join. Or on their experience on the streets seeing desperate miracles and dark struggles. Or on hours practicing sword fighting in secret when they should be weaving, baking bread, or counting money. Many paths can lead to the image of a knight in shining armor, struggling for Good.

[The Trickster]

The players handbook says something about "receiving the call of a paladin." Whether or not this is a metaphorical calling, or a person receives an actual "calling" from a deity is up to the DM and/or the player.

[BWR]

For any non-mechnical paladin questions, dig up the 2E "Complete Paladin's Handbook".

I would say there are several ways one can become a paladin. How does one become any class?
Some paladins may start as squires to older paladins who train and educate them. Some may be trained in churches alongside clerics. Some may be granted a divine revelation on their own and dedicate their lives to it. Some may work hard for certain ideals and suddenly notice they have cool powers, without any training, guidance or revelations.

[Thrudd]

This may be a simple thing but my mind is drawing a blank. How does one become a Paladin? Born into nobility and therefore automatically one? Do you become one much like being Knighted? Be some kind of apprentice first? I cannot find any posts regarding this nor any web sites. If you could direct me, I would be grateful. The guides do not spell out any background options or ideas.

You start out as the chamber-pot boy for another paladin. Gradually you rise through the ranks of scullery-maid, stable-shoveler, stable boy, squire's assistant, squire, and then you are finally ready to be considered for the position of assistant junior paladin, who is just like a fighter except not allowed to kill anyone without express permission of the paladin or assistant paladin. By the time you're a level 1 paladin, you have been through so much poo, that your attitude has been fine tuned either for extreme patience and forbearance or immediate slaying of anything that gives you the evil-eye or is slightly tinged on the "detect evil" chart.

:smallbiggrin:

[Sylthia]

The placing of a stick up one's butt must be performed before seeking a career in paladinhood as seen in http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html

[drack]

You start out as the chamber-pot boy for another paladin. Gradually you rise through the ranks of scullery-maid, stable-shoveler, stable boy, squire's assistant, squire, and then you are finally ready to be considered for the position of assistant junior paladin, who is just like a fighter except not allowed to kill anyone without express permission of the paladin or assistant paladin. By the time you're a level 1 paladin, you have been through so much poo, that your attitude has been fine tuned either for extreme patience and forbearance or immediate slaying of anything that gives you the evil-eye or is slightly tinged on the "detect evil" chart.

:smallbiggrin:

Indeed, though you forgot the part about how all the knight apprentices push their poop shoving onto the paladin through the stereotype of him or her being a perfectly good aligned lawful being willing to do anything for the sake of slaying evil. It's when you notice that you'll never escape this poo that you finally turn to the small joys in life like smiting... everything... :smallwink:

[CRtwenty]

It really depends on the setting. The PHB fluff seems to indicate that most Paladins are part of Knightly Orders that are themselves part of a larger religious structure. So a Paladin of Heironeous would have been inducted at a young age and gone through a Squirehood as well as religious training until they were promoted to a full Paladin. They'd likely be sent by higher ups on missions alongside Clerics on religious quests. Escorting Pilgrims, fighting against known dens of Evil, etc.

But that's just the typical example. Somebody could easily be chosen by a Deity and become a Paladin outside of a structured setting like that. And of course there's people who multiclass into Paladin because they felt the call later in life (O-Chul from OotS is a good example of this). Paladin groups could also exist outside of the typical Knight-Errant style. They could be a secret society working undercover in an evil Kingdom resistance style, or various other things based on the campaign world.

[BowStreetRunner]

The concept of a Paladin originally came from the Twelve Peers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin) of Charlemagne's court. These would most certainly have all been nobles. However, the concept as introduced to D&D was also influenced by other historical figures: the Arthurian knights involved in the Grail Quest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grail_Quest), the holy military orders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_order) of Christianity, and other examples of holy soldiers such as Joan of Arc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc). The key unifying elements of these figures are a combination of martial training and a religious calling.

The lack of social mobility and available opportunities during the middle ages meant that the majority of such people would come from noble families, but the D&D Paladin can come from any background. As a PC, each character is generally an exception to the norm and can have whatever heroic background upon which the player and DM agree. So you should feel free to think up a suitable backstory where the character receives sufficient military training and has the appropriate level of religious background to justify entry into the paladin class.

My personal favorite paladin backstory was a young nobleman whose family were ruling over an occupied region much like Scotland under English rule. The young noble met and fell in love with the daughter of a local chieftain, who convinced him to convert to her religion. She helped him overcome his prejudices against her people and the two married in secret. However, tragedy ensued when their respective fathers learned of the marriage, and in the events that followed she was struck down and died. Distraught and on the verge of taking his own life so he can be with her again in the afterlife, the young noble encounters a priest of her faith who explains that suicide would prevent him from joining her in the afterlife. He is told that the only way he can be with her again is to live a holy life sufficient to balance the wrongs he has committed in the past. So begins his quest to do enough good to balance against all the evils he has done in the past. Throughout the game he was played as someone with a deathwish - as indeed he sought an honorable death that would redeem him - but who clung to life fiercely as he was never quite certain he had done enough to counteract all his previous evil acts.

[Valwyn]

I guess it varies from case to case. Some might be nobles (usually secondborns and younger) who were put on that path by their parents. Some are just commoners who want to make the world a better place. Some are orphans raised by the church. Some particular individuals might have been called by the church to undergo the training, either by the clergy or the deity itself. You could also take the Prestige Paladin PrC as "canon" and decide that all paladins begin as fighters of some sort before receiving some clerical training.

Really, it could be anything you like. You could even be a redeemed villain. (Can you convert blackguard levels into paladin levels?)

[S_Grey]

My most recent paladin, albeit a paladin of freedom, began living in a small isolated desert town. His freedom-y paladin-ness came from an overbearing sort of monarchy with a few too many ruthless laws (laws meant to ensure the survival of the majority).

Don't know if that helps.

[Slipperychicken]

Be some kind of apprentice first?

I always imagined it as a hardcore religious order, where you have to endure all kinds of crazy tests of morality, fortitude, bravery, and endurance. If you manage to pass them all with flying colors (almost no-one does because it involves ludicrous stuff like starvation, being abducted and tortured, taking week-long exams, and setting yourself on fire. Most people give up, some die, a few actually make it. Only the most unshakable bastions of goodness will endure), and get golden recommendations from your supervisors, then you get sponsored by the cosmic forces of Lawful Goodness and become a Paladin. The ceremony itself, although a local lord will often attend, is pretty spartan (i.e. no feast, no crowds, no music, no frills) because humility and temperance are strongly associated with Goodness.


Obviously, even if you don't make Paladin (or just don't have the stats for it), you can still sign on as a holy knight of any class, which is a pretty serious honor in it's own right. Many people will call anyone who passes the tests a Paladin (referring to saintlike virtue rather than a formal title), regardless of his class, even though this isn't technically correct.

[Clistenes]

They probably train under the tutelage of an Order or of an experienced older Paladin. They would be squires (1st level warriors) until the gods accept them as worthy and they are dubbed.

[Eldan]

I actually quite like the idea of peasant Paladins. One day, while working in the field, you see an injustice happening, jump in to prevent it and find supernatural grace in the process.

Thinking about it, sounds almost like Exaltation.


I mean, a level one character doesn't have the money to represent a noble anyway.

[CRtwenty]

I mean, a level one character doesn't have the money to represent a noble anyway.

An average starting amount of 150gp at first level is hardly an insignificant amount. Sure by PC standards it's low, but by NPC standards it's a small fortune.

[CaladanMoonblad]

I agree with Bowstreetrunner and Slipperychicken on the OP- based on the SRD's class description and mechanics (LG), the Paladin is a creation of both Systematic Order and Good. It is only with variant rules that the Paladin class can become a mirror of the alignment extremes (CG, CE, LE), but that's a GM / World Building issue.

Thus, the plain-jane Paladin class should be coming from a militant order, similar to the Knights Templar from the Middle Ages / Crusades. For much of the medieval period, the C------- Church emulated many secular institutions in Europe, serving as authority figures with secular powers in addition to their religious authority. Bishops and Cardinals owned estates, traded estates, made laws, etc.

So, a possible background that may be common... many Good organizations will run orphanages (some parents even left babies on the steps of the church hoping their child will have a better life than be a peasant, or because the parents have too many mouths to feed as it is).

From among these children, the Clerics and Paladin orders will select those members of merit who have a religious calling to fill the ranks of the faithful. Less likely will be the noble's 2nd or 3rd son (or daughter, since DnD worlds tend to be more egalitarian than medieval Europe), who was given to the Church because the eldest is inheriting all the lands and titles. Any heir after the first is a bench warmer in case the eldest heir dies (hunting accident, disease, etc.)

[SethoMarkus]

An idea for a character that I'd like to play at some point is a Fighter 2/Paladin X. The idea being that he is retired from the military, possibly was an officer of some sort, but of humble (read: peasant) origin. He now makes a living as a (pig) farmer, or other lowly caste job, and is barely able to make ends meet. Married and with children, he takes up adventuring and mercenary work to help put food on the table. However, he is a man of strong virtues and is very religious; he detests any unsavory work that filters down to a lowly mercenary, but he puts his family first, sucks it up, and does what needs to be done. As he continues adventuring, he slowly turns further and further away from those unsavory jobs, starts to fight for Good and justice more than money, and even starts working pro-bono in many cases (still earning/keeping enough for his family to survive, but his wife begins to wonder why he's risking his life like this when they are hardly doing any better than when they were raising pigs). Eventually, he realizes his calling as a Paladin and approaches a holy order to be officially inducted. If they turn him away, he serves on his own with no political backing, seeking to bring Good to the world and upholding Laws that are just and proper.

Just as any of the classes, I think that any backstory can work as long as it makes some sort of sense. Unless she's repenting and truly has turned her alignment around, the cannibal sorceress necromancer who sacrifices babies and kicks puppies isn't going to be an appropriate backstory for a paladin. Likewise, the cloistered monk (profession, not class) that is part of a monastery famous for charity work and healing the sick most likely will not be appropriate as the backstory for the merciless, bloodthirsty barbarian warlord ravaging the countryside (at least not without some good, old trauma to mess the character's psyche up!).

[Janus]

position of assistant junior paladin
Assistant to the junior paladin. :smallwink:

[Slipperychicken]

I actually quite like the idea of peasant Paladins. One day, while working in the field, you see an injustice happening, jump in to prevent it and find supernatural grace in the process.


Sounds a lot like historical knighthood. Each knight would be given a little plot of land to farm (which helps pay for his armor and horse, naturally), which he lived on until his lord called him into service.


Feudalism is a lot like Magic: The Gathering, now that I think about it....

[Grayson01]

In R.A. Salvators The Sellsword Trillogy he mentions a Paladin being chosen by the specific god and they become a Paladin after preforming their first Miracle "Lay on Hands".