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View Full Version : Paladin & Cleric : Religion instead of Alignment?



Sergeantbrother
2007-05-25, 07:52 PM
I was thinking it would be an interesting setting to have morality defined by religion instead of Alignment. In the case of paladins and clerics this would mean a certain set of values that were specific to each religion, and instead of having to obey some Alignment, the cleric or paladin would have to obey the religious dogma.

For example, one religion may believe in forgiveness and repentance, while another one may believe in harsh judgment. A paladin of the first religion may be required to take prisoners alive and try to get them to turn from evil to goodness, while a paladin of the second religion may simply execute any wrong doers despite their pleas for mercy or attempts at surrender. Alternatively, some religions may believe that killing non-believers is good, or eating a certain food is evil, etc.

This could make it so that each cleric and paladin has radically different codes of conduct based on their religion. Also, in the case of detecting evil, instead of using an absolute measure of evil, perhaps the spell or power could detect people that would be considered evil according the the religion's dogma. For example, if the religion believed that all elves and all non-believers were evil, then they would show up as evil to a paladin of that religion.

Has anybody tried anything like this?

Tellah
2007-05-25, 08:18 PM
There's a selection of variant Paladins (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedCoreClass.html#paladin) in the Unearthed Arcana portion of the SRD. If you want them to express the neutral alignments as well, it'd take just a slight bit of tweaking.

SpiderBrigade
2007-05-25, 08:40 PM
That's a pretty cool idea, but it would require more tweaking than you think. For instance, most of the paladin's abilities are centered around a certain kind of ethos - lawful good. For instance wouldn't a "loving, forgiving" paladin have much less use for Smite Enemy than the "harsh, judgemental" one? Similarly, a paladin of the God of Plagues really shouldn't be Curing Disease, not even once a week :smallwink:

At that point, you need to think about not only refitting the base class, but also refitting the variant classes that Tellah mentioned. Ideally each individual religion should have a somewhat unique paladin, otherwise what's the point of making them be different?

The other thing to consider is that the alignment system is kind of built into a lot of the rules. It's not impossible to change (or eliminate), but the way the world works will be pretty different. How do you handle outsiders, for instance? Are there still Magic Circles Against X? How do they work? Where do undead fit in? These are certainly answerable, but you do need to be ready to deal with them.

doorknobdeity
2007-05-26, 12:45 AM
Remember, though, a paladin is meant to be a holy warrior. Even if his god is into the whole turn-the-other-cheek thing, he's still a warrior, and as such the smites wouldn't be as incongruous as you might think. The viability of having a warrior dedicated to a god of peace, on the other hand, is a whole 'nother can of worms. Maybe he's there for the times when turning the other cheek will only get one's skull bashed in, maybe he simply isn't following the dictates of his god as closely as he thinks.

Sergeantbrother
2007-05-26, 02:11 AM
Thanks for the input guys. The variant paladins look pretty cool. Not exactly what I was thinking of but they are a good starting point :)

Spider Brigade : I was planning on doing something like you mention, replacing powers as appropriate - snce for many religions curing diseases doesn't make much sense, for others neither causes nor curing diseases amkes sense. So I was thinking of each religion having a different set of powers for its paladins.

Also, when it comes to things like outsiders or circles of protection, etc. it basically comes down to whether or not the creature is aligned to the religion. There would be celestial creatures that are servants of or friendly with certain gods and those would be the equivalent of good. Extra-planner creatures that are unfriendly towards the religion would be the equivalent of evil. Undead fit depending on how the religion views them. Religions that are stronger against undead might have clerics and paladins who can turn them and spells that work against them. Religions that view undead positively might give the ability to rebuke the undead or have spells that help them. Other religions will be undead neutral and will have neither.

As for the idea of a paladin of peace, I agree that certain religions may not be able to accomodate the paladin concept - since it is inherently combat oriented. A strictly pacifistic religion probably wouldn't have paladin equivalents. Though a religion could be heavily focused on peace and forgiveness and still leave room for violence under certain circumstances.

Hazkali
2007-05-26, 05:17 AM
I've always wanted to do a campaign where Smite Evil etc is replaced by Smite Infidel, where an "Infidel" is someone who isn't a follower of the particular religion. In a campagin like this Alignment becomes secondary- for each god will have followers of many different alignments who subscribe to different interpretations of the god's teachings, but still worship that god over others. I believe the correct term for this is henotheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/henotheism)

Citizen Joe
2007-05-26, 07:32 AM
I made a suggested variant like this over in the Tears of Blood campaign setting. It is more like Opposing Ethos and Compatible Ethos. So your prtection spells becomd Protection from Opposing Ethos and then you get Detect Compatible Ethos and Detect Opposing Ethos. Just go through the alignment spells and change them appropriately. The hard part is having to define everyone's ethos and then determining which of the THOUSANDS of creatures are opposed or not. Of course your ethos can also arbitrarily decide that any particular creature is opposing your ethos, regardless of what it believes.

Matthew
2007-05-26, 07:40 AM
Clerics should already be following the tenents, morality and ethos of the religion. Alignment is just the result of following those tenents.

Paladins do not have to be associated with a particular Deity by default. The Code they follow is supposed to result in a Lawful Good Alignment.

Ravyn
2007-05-26, 03:44 PM
Paladins of different stripes can be done--quite effectively, at that. In fact, that's half the fun--if you can get multiple paladins working on slightly different approaches in one party, that's a mess of potential for RP right there. The mechanics have their own issues, but it seems to work out pretty well in the long run... and hey, your redeemer paladin trying to subdue evil can always get an appropriate weapon proficiency and smite for subdual, right? (Or later--have Merciful weapon, will travel!)

If you want to see a good example of paladin variation solely based on code, I'd recommend checking out Varen_Tai's "A Paladin's Heart", over in Beta Subforum. Seven paladins. More difference of subculture than you can shake a stick at. And we're still on the "getting to know each other" stage...

Koga
2007-05-26, 04:27 PM
It makes rational sense to do this. The Koga would if he ever GMed a dnd game.

When confronted with alignment based spells or a paladin's smite or whatever. You're the GM, a simple yes or no on if it effects them or not. The Koga doesn't remember it being a crime to ask the GM "would this work on X?"

Sergeantbrother
2007-05-27, 02:09 AM
Clerics should already be following the tenents, morality and ethos of the religion. Alignment is just the result of following those tenents.

Paladins do not have to be associated with a particular Deity by default. The Code they follow is supposed to result in a Lawful Good Alignment.

I have never really seen any standard D&D game where there were lots fo strict religious rules that a cleric had to follow. Often these rules should make it so that the cleric doesn't neatly fit into one alignment.

Also, regarding paladins with no religion - I always thought that was silly. I think that a paladin doesn't necessaily need a deity to worship, but he must believe in some sort of religion or philosophy. Not just a champion of goodness.


I also agree with Koga when he says


When confronted with alignment based spells or a paladin's smite or whatever. You're the GM, a simple yes or no on if it effects them or not. The Koga doesn't remember it being a crime to ask the GM "would this work on X?

I don't need to decide every religion's opinion on every creature - I just need to decide on the creatures and religions that pop up in the game. That shouldn't be too hard.

Matthew
2007-05-27, 06:26 AM
I have never really seen any standard D&D game where there were lots fo strict religious rules that a cleric had to follow. Often these rules should make it so that the cleric doesn't neatly fit into one alignment.
Not sure what you mean. There aren't many 'strict' rules, but there are plenty of guidelines as to what is and is not appropriate behaviour. I guess it depends on the degree of precision you're looking for. I don't see why a Religion should have rules that don't correspond to an Alignment, though.


Also, regarding paladins with no religion - I always thought that was silly. I think that a paladin doesn't necessaily need a deity to worship, but he must believe in some sort of religion or philosophy. Not just a champion of goodness.

Paladin's do follow a philosophy, I cannot even begin to bend my mind around the idea of one that doesn't...