Antipaladin Questions

[Xuldarinar]

Just a few questions revolving around the Pathfinder Antipaladin. I may ask more later.



What exactly is it that anti paladins cannot do? Their code of conduct seems clear enough, though a little paradoxical given that they are CE and must 'impose tyranny' which is consistent with LE, but it leads me to wonder. When can an anti paladin be 'good'? Can this be in the long run, even over the course of a campaign?

Regarding archetypes, are there any paladin archetypes that are valid as is for anti-paladins? What about ones that require minimal conversions?

[Keneth]

They cannot be good ever. That doesn't stop them from doing good things to achieve evil goals though. As long as the motives are right, you can do whatever you want. It's highly unlikely a antipaladin would every fall (or rise, as it were).

As for the archetypes, alternate classes should generally be able to take archetypes of the original class as long as the archetype replaces abilities which they still have (or are equivalent).

[QuackParker]

Hmm, I usually view a Paladin that uses evil to attain a good end to have fallen, so I think a Antipaladin should have to really follow evil to the letter.

[Keneth]

Actually, an antipaladin explicitly does not have to adhere to same strict rules.


An antipaladin must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean that an antipaladin cannot take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must always be in service of his own dark ends.
End justifying the means is, after all, a non-good behavior, so that logic doesn't work on both ends.

[QuackParker]

Actually, an antipaladin explicitly does not have to adhere to same strict rules.


End justifying the means is, after all, a non-good behavior, so that logic doesn't work on both ends.

Touché. I would only caution the player should have to justify to the GM why something like an act of charity or saving a life furthers his evil ends when committing the seemingly good act.

[Keneth]

It's really not that hard to come up with reasons for doing good acts with evil motivations. Anyone that doesn't play Stupid Evil characters needs to keep up appearances. As long as the motivations aren't altruistic, there's no problem.

[deuxhero]

Whatever the GM says they can't do, duh!

As for archetypes, the two don't share ANY features except proficiency and "spells" (which is changed slightly anyways), and no archetype touches only those. Plenty of archetypes are easy to convert (just replace the barely replaced feature), but not a single one works by RAW.

As general Antipaladin advice, unarmed+Crusader's Fist is surprisingly decent. Latter cruelty effects are really painful, and you can add it AFTER you hit this way, rather than potentially waste uses (if you do go that way, Clockwork Prosthesis lets you apply magical properties to unarmed strike and stack with AoMF if you make that just special properties). Go with the companion because it lets you invalidate the rouge, give the entire party a +2 to their highest ability score permanently or a bunch of other stuff that far outweights a standard action activation magic weapon, have unlimited SLAs to power a spell storing weapon/amulet.