Blandiose, Knight of the Gray Area

[Sheogoroth]

A friend of mine had an idea for a True Neutral Paladin who was forced to commit an equally evil act for every good one and an equally chaotic act for every lawful one- the true roulette.
Now, Rp-wise, you could just do this with a Cleric or Cavalier, and in fact Cavaliers do have some orders that are vaguely similar to this, but I really like the idea of a paladin of Nethys from PF, every bit as unhinged as his deity, forced to atone if his alignment should ever come unbalanced.
I just picture him smashing a beggar in the face and then carrying him to a physician to get healed, only to burn the clinic to the ground and pay to have everyone resurrected and the building reconstructed- next to a Lich's lair, who he proceeds to kill, but then gives his phylactery to the beggar.

So my question is- are there rules for a neutral Paladin?
If so who do you smite?

Another question I just thought of- Alignment-wise, if your character flips a coin whether to react evil or good in every situation, mathematically he winds up down the middle of the road, but is it inherently evil to leave something like that to chance?

[BowStreetRunner]

Regarding the last part, flipping a coin to decide good or evil is itself inherently chaotic, so would need to be balanced by something inherently lawful.

EDIT: btw, tell your friend good luck with this. It sound immensely more difficult than a normal paladin.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, a creature that acts out essentially at random is going to be Chaotic. There's no way to do Lawful acts at random because the entire premise of Lawful is that you are consistent.

[BowStreetRunner]

Another issue that occurred to regarding this character concept - a paladin is not just a practitioner of an ideology, but also a crusader for that ideology. So the character would need to pay close attention to the state of balance in the greater world, and adjust his own focus accordingly. When any other ideology (good, evil, law, chaos) holds sway, the true neutral character would actively take actions to restore the balance toward the center. This might mean the TN Paladin would favor one over the others until the balance is restored. His own balance would need to be adjusted to compensate for the imbalance created by others. If the character just worries about his own internal balance, he is not really being a paladin.

[Gabrosin]

Druid. The word you're looking for here is Druid.

[atemu1234]

Druid. The word you're looking for here is Druid.

There is also the Incarnate, from Dragon Magazine (no relation to Incarnum).

[Red Fel]

I say this as somebody who loathes the alignment restrictions on classes, particularly those on the Paladin, and as somebody who is aware of the various Paladin variants, both from UA1 and Dragon Magazine2:

No. Just no.

The Paladin is meant to embody an extreme. Even if you get past the idea of LG as being "the" Paladin alignment, the idea of a TN Paladin is hard to swallow. Frankly, it's hard for me to accept the idea of a Paladin with even one Neutral component; it's possible, but it's hard. But none?

As BowStreetRunner mentions, Paladins are champions of an ideology. And while "balance" is an ideology (see Druids for more on that), what you're describing isn't balance. It's madness. This is a character who is, effectively, not in control of his own actions; a character whose every action is entirely dependent upon and determined by the action preceding it. This is a lunatic, and even if he weren't played by a Paladin I wouldn't want him at my table. Trying to visualize a champion of an ideology behaving like this is unfathomable to me. I suppose a CN "champion of chaos" might explain it, but at that point I'm already wary of the CN; to have him behave like this would merely confirm my suspicions.

A Paladin has a code. Somewhat paradoxically, even Chaotic Paladins (Freedom, Slaughter) have codes. It is impossible for a Paladin of whackadoodle to have a code; he would have to violate it every other round. His class features would depend on him acting in such a way as to lose his class features. It's an aneurysm waiting to happen.

It's a great idea, but I can't see it executing well. And certainly not as a Paladin.

1 You can find them here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinVariantsFreedom SlaughterAndTyranny).
2 Issue #310 gives several, including a Neutral Paladin, called the Incarnate. Atemu mentioned this one. They smite alignment extremes (LG, LE, CG, CE).

[atemu1234]

2 Issue #310 gives several, including a Neutral Paladin, called the Incarnate. Atemu mentioned this one. They smite alignment extremes (LG, LE, CG, CE).[/SIZE]

Also, note that this makes them 33% more effective at smiting than most paladins.

[Tiri]

Also, note that this makes them 33% more effective at smiting than most paladins.

A normal paladin would probably still be better most of the time since it's unlikely you would be fighting all of those alignments at once, while its more likely a good paladin will be fighting all evil alignments at once. And vice versa. Not the most likely scenario, but more likely than LG, CG, LE and CE characters all working together.

[DrKerosene]

I remember seeing something about a Dragon Magazine with a TN Paladin, it replaced "Smite Evil" with "Smite Extremist", and I don't recall any of the other changes. I just remember thinking "Well, looks like that class is going to spend most of it's time fighting other Paladins, then heroes and villains."

I like the idea, but I expect it would be very hard to pull-off, and would probably lead to more of a chaotic ("crazy murder-hobo") style as you have envisioned/described.

A TN Paladin seems like it might be better replaced by an Urban Druid, and a seriously group-thunk Code.

[Anlashok]

A friend of mine had an idea for a True Neutral Paladin who was forced to commit an equally evil act for every good one and an equally chaotic act for every lawful one
A character disciplined and dedicated enough to balance every single action like that sounds very Lawful to me.



Another question I just thought of- Alignment-wise, if your character flips a coin whether to react evil or good in every situation, mathematically he winds up down the middle of the road, but is it inherently evil to leave something like that to chance?
Well, doing things simply on a whim or chance is pretty obviously chaotic, so we've got that covered. As for the actual question, yeah. I'd say that's pretty Evil. Evil, after all, is defined by hurting others and a lack of compassion and "I'll kill you if my coin lands on tails" fits that bill pretty solidly and the SRD defines neutrality on the good-evil axis as someone who has moral compunctions about killing and hurting people unnecessarily but isn't going to put themselves at risk for strangers either and it certainly doesn't line up with that definition.

[Gabrosin]

A character disciplined and dedicated enough to balance every single action like that sounds very Lawful to me.

By that logic, a character who always behaved randomly would also be lawful, since he rigidly obeyed his own chance-based system.

[hamishspence]

So my question is- are there rules for a neutral Paladin?
If so who do you smite?

Dragon Magazine 310 and 313 have 8 paladin variants beside the standard one (first 5 are in 310, the Evil ones are in 313).

The Neutral paladin from 310 is called an Incarnate. Their smite works on CG, LG, CE, and LE alignments.

They never associate with alignment-subtyped beings (typically, outsiders like fiends and celestials)

They fall if they "ever willingly commit an act that endangers the natural balance of the world".

They don't need to commit an Evil act for every Good one or a Lawful act for every Chaotic one though.

They keep the Balance by identifying regions where one of the forces has grown too powerful, and opposing it in that region.