How often can you subvert the Paladin trope?

[syelle]

Hello there ;)

I've been playing a forest gnome OotA paladin for a few months and am enjoying it greatly.
The base class is so strong that even the suboptimal race/class combination (I use point buy)
doesn't make me feel weak.

Choosing the Oath of the Ancients tied directly into the character concept for me, but looking at the other Paladin Oaths and 'Oaths' (Devotion, Vengeance, Redemption, Trickery, Conquest and Oathbreaker to the best of my knowledge), I can't help but feeling that subverting the Paladin trope (*) is more popular -- both in terms of numbers of archetypes and size of player base -- than playing to or expanding on the trope. I must confess that I feel a bit tired of this abundance of 'edgy' paladin archetypes. Apart from the Oathbreaker, I still allow them in my game though.

This leaves me with a few questions I would be interested in discussing, or at least finding out what the common consensus is on:

1) Do you think the base Paladin class should be split along along a good/evil axis, into a Paladin and an Anti-Paladin subclass? E.g. I don't think it's fitting that all Oathbreakers have a divine smite that deals radiant damage, and auras of protection and courage.
Why not give them a 'fiendish smite' that deals necrotic, and, say, auras of destruction and fear?

2) Why do you think there are more Paladin archetypes that subvert the trope than there are archetypes sticking to it ('verbatim' in the case of Devotion, more or less loosely for Ancients and Redemption).

3) Do you think there are any 'true-to-trope' Paladin archetypes missing?

4) Do you miss another subversive Paladin archetype?

(*) What I consider in congruence with the trope or in contrast 'edgy' in this case (please forgive the 's):
To me, Paladins are about upholding an ideal of law/justice defined by powers of good that are larger than them. They understand they are just agents of a greater power. These ideals of law/justice might be a bit alien (as in Ancients, Redemption), but they are ultimately self-less. Contrast Vengeance, etc.

[Unoriginal]

Thing is, those are not subversions per se. I understand that it's not your vision of the Paladin, but 5e defined what the Paladin was as far as it was concerned, and it doesn't use your definition.


A class isn't one trope. Characters are neither only their class nor one trope.

[Hears You]

I'm not really a fan of breaking up the class. I can sorta just lean in on the historical title.

Switching the smite to necrotic is mostly a downside, but probably a fine flavor ribbon.

As for the imbalance I'm not seeing it.

Ancients, Crown, Devotion, Redemption and Vengeance are all iconic "paladin" imho. That really just leaves Conquest, Treachery is UA and Oath-breaker is DMG weird jump through hoops to get.

With archetypes that are missing, purging fire feels like a big important one, and that honestly works both as a good and anti-paladin simply depending on how you play them.

A properly undead focused deathknight is also probably a huuuuuge one that's missing. Though divine steed is probably miles more powerful then animate dead tbh. Especially with how well WoW's sold the "tragic undead knights still working for good" angle on the concept.

[Vogie]

Do you think the base Paladin class should be split along along a good/evil axis, into a Paladin and an Anti-Paladin subclass? E.g. I don't think it's fitting that all Oathbreakers have a divine smite that deals radiant damage, and auras of protection and courage.
Why not give them a 'fiendish smite' that deals necrotic, and, say, auras of destruction and fear?

I'm a huge fan of adjusting existing classes with fluff and minor mechanical changes to better fit. If someone wanted to play a Blizzard druid by taking a Circle of Spores druid and change all mentions of "poison" to "cold", that's just gravy - so having your Oathbreaker smite with Necrotic damage would make equal sense. Also using "Oathbreaker" paladins as the oathsworn champions of the Lords of the Undead would make perfect sense.

Conquest already has a Fear Aura, and really could equally be either good or evil, depending on the fluff.

Oath of Treachery, from UA, has a misdirection/Chaos aura which is pretty cool.


Why do you think there are more Paladin archetypes that subvert the trope than there are archetypes sticking to it ('verbatim' in the case of Devotion, more or less loosely for Ancients and Redemption).

Because Paladins have this "goodboi" image from previous editions, and the bulk of the published material are on that side.


Do you think there are any 'true-to-trope' Paladin archetypes missing?

I could see more head-y paladin oaths. Something akin to the Arcana and Knowledge Cleric domains, that could be neutral or lean toward evil in a "black Knight" or "Death Knight" tropes that aren't covered by EK fighters.

[Kharneth]

I think the best classes are the ones that are broad and malleable.

The Wizard and Fighter are great classes because they can extend to many different things. All Wizards are arcane spellcasters and all fighters are fighters, but they have a lot of inherent variety.

All the base classes offer a lot of variation, but I think Paladin has always been the most restrictive. Dividing it further would only make two more even more specialized classes. I like how they removed the Lawful Good requirement and added a variety of paladin options that are more than either protect the innocent or punish the wicked. Redemption and Ancient are two variations that stick with the good-martial-caster-hybrid theme but really stretch the boundaries of what it means to be a Paladin.

I don't really see a problem with an evil paladin dealing radiant damage. I get the connotation of radiant being holy and holy being good versus necrotic being unholy and unholy being evil, but I don't think that's really the case. Radiant damage is described as searing the flesh like fire and overloading the spirit with power. I interpret radiant damage as divine damage - damage coming from a divine source. A divine source can be of any alignment. Necrotic damage says that it withers matter and even the soul. Both are clearly capable of affecting the soul/spirit of the target because both are divine in nature, but they have different effects. One burns and the other decays.

[Millstone85]

Paladin oaths are on a journey to complete the alignment chart.



LG Devotion
NG Ancients
CG Freedom


LN Crown
TN Vengeance
CN Discovery


LE Conquest
NE Oathbreaker
CE Trickery



Or not, since I don't know where to put Redemption.

[Arzanyos]

One thing I'd like to point out is that in 5e, paladins aren't "just agents of a greater power." They're not warlocks, who have a pact and someone looking over them. In the 5e fluff, a paladin's power comes from his oath itself. In essence, it is strength of belief, not divine favor that makes one a paladin.

Also, while Trickery and Oathbreaker can't really be used for a "classic paladin" style character, I think Vengeance and Conquest totally can. Admittedly, going as a good conquest paladin pretty much locks you into the lawful stupid trope, but vengeance is basically just a more offensively focused oath. You go out and seek out evil, rather than stopping it when it crops up like the devotion oath.

[Kharneth]

Paladin oaths are on a journey to complete the alignment chart.



LG Devotion
NG Ancients
CG Freedom


LN Crown
TN Vengeance
CN Discovery


LE Conquest
NE Oathbreaker
CE Trickery



Or not, since I don't know where to put Redemption.

Redemption is Neutral Good with Ancients being TN and Vengeance being CG.

[syelle]

Thank you for all the cool replies so far! I hope I'll have more time soon to look at them in more detail :)

Ah, I missed Crown!

I'm sorry if I came across as narrow, and I understand that no one needs my definitions anyway.
But 'Paladin' is a very narrow concept in-real-life and in-game historically:
As far as I understand, older editions of D&D used to balance the class by subjecting it to alignment restrictions (which I dislike both for mechanical and an RP reasons).

But then, what is a D&D 5e Paladin? Someone who is simply driven by their power of conviction? Or, why is it not just a knight or champion of XY?

I'm asking because the PHB states the following:

A paladin swears to uphold justice and righteousness, to stand with the good things of the world against the encroaching darkness, and to hunt the forces of evil wherever they lurk. Different paladins focus on various aspects of the cause of righteousness, but all are bound by the oaths that grant them power to do their sacred work. Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god.

Which I think lines up well with how I see a Paladin through my googles of narrow view ;).
Whence, to me, the Vengeance Paladin is already stretching or subverting the description above, which I called 'trope' in my OP. I also think that having a subclass that undermines or subverts a highly trope-y class (which the Paladin is) is a good thing.

The other morally ambiguous archetypes (Treachery, Conquest, ...) do introduce some cool mechanics,
but the reason they exist -- as a Paladin archetype specifically, not a Fighter or, say, Warlord subclass -- seems to mainly undermine the trope. What makes them Paladin-y? I genuinely want to see how others see/interpret these archetypes in this way.

[Millstone85]

Redemption is Neutral Good with Ancients being TN and Vengeance being CG.I think you might be mocking the idea altogether.

Still, here is where this came from.
Many who swear this oath are devoted to gods of law and good and use their gods' tenets as the measure of their devotion.
This oath emphasizes the principles of good above any concerns of law or chaos.
Paladins who uphold these tenets are willing to sacrifice even their own righteousness to mete out justice upon those who do evil, so the paladins are often neutral or lawful neutral in alignment.
Later books did not give such alignment advice. But it is clear that both Crown and Conquest emphasise law, and the latter is compatible with hell-knighthood.

[Kharneth]

I think you might be mocking the idea altogether.

Still, here is where this came from.
Later books did not give such alignment advice. But it is clear that both Crown and Conquest emphasise law, and the latter is compatible with hell-knighthood.

Well, the idea is poorly grounded, honestly, because the Oaths are not tied to alignments and they can easily overlap. The alignments in D&D are subjective anyway.

[Knaight]

2) Why do you think there are more Paladin archetypes that subvert the trope than there are archetypes sticking to it ('verbatim' in the case of Devotion, more or less loosely for Ancients and Redemption).

To some extent this is just because the trope is fairly narrow, and as such there are vastly more ways to play against it than to it.

To a larger extent, consider what the trope represents, based on common implementations. The paladin is a holy warrior, empowered by a god, going out into the world to kill enemies of their faith. Yes, technically they don't need to be "holy" per se. Technically they're not necessarily empowered by a god or faith. None of that above sentence is actually built into the class, that's just the common implementation of it as a broader trope. We see this in a lot of ways, from obvious adaptations of the D&D paladin elsewhere centering these more heavily (the "generic fantasy" paladin endemic to fantasy videogames), to D&D 3.5 releasing a class that's basically a paladin replacement literally called a Crusader, to pointing out that that description holds surprisingly well for pre-D&D paladins.

Now consider the connotations of "holy warrior, empowered by a god, going out into the world to kill enemies of their faith" today. There's a definite lean towards dangerous extremists, up to and including bonafide terrorist organizations. The historical models behind the paladin aren't considered particularly heroic either, so between these two things you get a lot of players playing holy warriors empowered by a god going out into the world to kill enemies of their faith in ways they feel are authentic to the concept.

Doing so tends not to produce characters who are particularly great people.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I take the 5e paladin to be something quite different than the stock "god-fueled warrior" cleric/fighter hybrid it's commonly made out to be.

What is a paladin?
A paladin is the expression of the power of words. In a world of magic, words have power. Words infused with conviction and sacrifice represent concepts that resonate with existence itself. More specifically, concepts have power. Anyone can make an oath. Paladins are those few whose conviction and adherence to their oaths is so total as to tap into the power of the words, of the concepts behind the oaths themselves. Devotion. Vengeance. Joy. Fear. Redemption. Loyalty. These concepts, adhered to with fervor and total dedication, provide power.

This is why paladins are CHA casters, not WIS casters. Their power does not come from some external being, whose will they are following. It comes from their strength of being, their inflexible will, their dedication to the concept that underlies their oath. They out-stubborn reality, refusing to bend to its fickle ways.

As a result, paladins need not be religious. They do need to hold to their oaths to retain their power. Not because an outside force is judging them and will cut them off if they "fall," but because they are judging themselves. When they intentionally fall, they're cutting themselves off from their oath. Some of those that shatter the empowering chains of words find other, darker sources of power. Indeed, the negation of a concept of power is also a concept of power. Thus, Oathbreakers draw their corrupt power from the metaphysical space between concepts. From the absence of joy, of devotion, from surrender and betrayal.

[Unoriginal]

I take the 5e paladin to be something quite different than the stock "god-fueled warrior" cleric/fighter hybrid it's commonly made out to be.

What is a paladin?
A paladin is the expression of the power of words. In a world of magic, words have power. Words infused with conviction and sacrifice represent concepts that resonate with existence itself. More specifically, concepts have power. Anyone can make an oath. Paladins are those few whose conviction and adherence to their oaths is so total as to tap into the power of the words, of the concepts behind the oaths themselves. Devotion. Vengeance. Joy. Fear. Redemption. Loyalty. These concepts, adhered to with fervor and total dedication, provide power.

This is why paladins are CHA casters, not WIS casters. Their power does not come from some external being, whose will they are following. It comes from their strength of being, their inflexible will, their dedication to the concept that underlies their oath. They out-stubborn reality, refusing to bend to its fickle ways.

As a result, paladins need not be religious. They do need to hold to their oaths to retain their power. Not because an outside force is judging them and will cut them off if they "fall," but because they are judging themselves. When they intentionally fall, they're cutting themselves off from their oath. Some of those that shatter the empowering chains of words find other, darker sources of power. Indeed, the negation of a concept of power is also a concept of power. Thus, Oathbreakers draw their corrupt power from the metaphysical space between concepts. From the absence of joy, of devotion, from surrender and betrayal.

Indeed. More specifically, Paladins' powers can be said to come from contract magic. Which literally hold the universe together.

Keep in mind that Oathbreakers might get power in life, but their transgression is so big that when they die they become Death Knights.

[Millstone85]

My own take on paladin powers is inspired by the DMG p13 "Forces and Philosophies".
In some campaigns, believers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction.
Paladins might serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity.
A philosophy that only one person believes in isn't strong enough to bestow magical power on that person.

Paladin powers still follow the usual concept of a god being fueled by collective faith and redistributing some of that power to remarkable servants. However, the god is replaced by a non-personified pool of collective faith. And rather than being chosen, the paladin attunes themself to the pool by vowing to exemplify it.

If a paladin could physically encounter the pool, it would be a place in the Astral Plane or in one of the Outer Planes (which may themselves have started as such pools).

[Theodoxus]

I take the 5e paladin to be something quite different than the stock "god-fueled warrior" cleric/fighter hybrid it's commonly made out to be.

What is a paladin?
A paladin is the expression of the power of words. In a world of magic, words have power. Words infused with conviction and sacrifice represent concepts that resonate with existence itself. More specifically, concepts have power. Anyone can make an oath. Paladins are those few whose conviction and adherence to their oaths is so total as to tap into the power of the words, of the concepts behind the oaths themselves. Devotion. Vengeance. Joy. Fear. Redemption. Loyalty. These concepts, adhered to with fervor and total dedication, provide power.

This is why paladins are CHA casters, not WIS casters. Their power does not come from some external being, whose will they are following. It comes from their strength of being, their inflexible will, their dedication to the concept that underlies their oath. They out-stubborn reality, refusing to bend to its fickle ways.

As a result, paladins need not be religious. They do need to hold to their oaths to retain their power. Not because an outside force is judging them and will cut them off if they "fall," but because they are judging themselves. When they intentionally fall, they're cutting themselves off from their oath. Some of those that shatter the empowering chains of words find other, darker sources of power. Indeed, the negation of a concept of power is also a concept of power. Thus, Oathbreakers draw their corrupt power from the metaphysical space between concepts. From the absence of joy, of devotion, from surrender and betrayal.


Indeed. More specifically, Paladins' powers can be said to come from contract magic. Which literally hold the universe together.

Keep in mind that Oathbreakers might get power in life, but their transgression is so big that when they die they become Death Knights.


My own take on paladin powers is inspired by the DMG p13 "Forces and Philosophies".

Paladin powers still follow the usual concept of a god being fueled by collective faith and redistributing some of that power to remarkable servants. However, the god is replaced by a non-personified pool of collective faith. And rather than being chosen, the paladin attunes themself to the pool by vowing to exemplify it.

If a paladin could physically encounter the pool, it would be a place in the Astral Plane or in one of the Outer Planes (which may themselves have started as such pools).

These ideas support my own - though I've taken them to the other extreme. Where you are stating that Paladins aren't connected to the Divine, but to the power that is the building stone of the multiverse, my take is that Paladins are proto-clerics.

The first peoples to recognize that Words are Power, and crafted oaths to serve that power, either through divine guidance or pure luck - whichever works best for your point of view.

Paladins brought forth the power of the divine and the divinities themselves, such that others, who would become priests and clerics saw the power of the paladin but mistook its origin.

As such, in my own campaign, I'm developing Paladin oaths that mirror clerical domains. Life = Redemption, Nature = Ancients, Death = Oathbreakers, Crown = Order, Conquest = War... I'm still working on others.

[Unoriginal]

These ideas support my own - though I've taken them to the other extreme. Where you are stating that Paladins aren't connected to the Divine, but to the power that is the building stone of the multiverse, my take is that Paladins are proto-clerics.

The first peoples to recognize that Words are Power, and crafted oaths to serve that power, either through divine guidance or pure luck - whichever works best for your point of view.

Paladins brought forth the power of the divine and the divinities themselves, such that others, who would become priests and clerics saw the power of the paladin but mistook its origin.

As such, in my own campaign, I'm developing Paladin oaths that mirror clerical domains. Life = Redemption, Nature = Ancients, Death = Oathbreakers, Crown = Order, Conquest = War... I'm still working on others.

In my campaign, Clerics were the first spellcasters, with Sorcerers the second.

The gods created the mortals, and there was always a few of the bunch that could be Chosen to make miracles in the deity's name. Sorcerers errupted soon after, when beings with enough magic -either innate or absorbed by exposure- started wondering "can I perform miracles too?"

[PhoenixPhyre]

In my campaign, Clerics were the first spellcasters, with Sorcerers the second.

The gods created the mortals, and there was always a few of the bunch that could be Chosen to make miracles in the deity's name. Sorcerers errupted soon after, when beings with enough magic -either innate or absorbed by exposure- started wondering "can I perform miracles too?"

For my setting it started (among mortals) with sorcerers, mostly draconic (created by Wyrm messing around with mortals souls) or wild-magic.

Then came the wizards and the bards. One by stealing the secret of writing (Runic magic) from the Titans and the secret of words of power (True Sorcery) from Wyrm; the other from fishermen who were exposed to the Harmonies of Leviathan. With the theory of magic thus created, sorcery became more regularized. The act of creating wizardry also broke the power of Wyrm and Titan, reducing them to dragons and giants (and dwarves, but that's a separate matter).

Paladins came next as the idea of abstract concepts embodied in Oaths became known. The first paladins swore oath of Crown to the elven empire and its wizard lords. Vengeance soon followed. The others came later. Note that at this point there were technically gods, but they were not involved with mortals. The path of faith was not open yet. They dealt with maintaining the world.

Druids and rangers were next--elves who were unsuited for the arcane sought out and bargained with spirits of nature, learning the words and rituals that would bind them to contracts. Unlike a warlock, they bargain not with the singular great spirits (at first), but with many smaller spirits, each providing a single service in exchange for personal energy. More like pets than masters.

Then, after Moon-fall and the destruction of the great Wizard empire and the creation of humanity, came extra-planar magic. With the opening of heavens through faith, mortals and beings of other planes could communicate more freely and make deals. Some were divine to worshiper (clerics); others were trades for information (warlocks).

Last of all, very recently came technomancy (homebrew). Materials, imbued with personal energy becoming like spells.

[Nidgit]

As a Paladin subclass, or perhaps a Ranger subclass, I'd love to see a ranged-focused Holy Archer-type character. I think the cultural framework is enough there already to make it work.

The main problems would be imposing drawbacks for the otherwise extremely powerful ranged Smite, and making it distinct enough from Arcane Archer and pre-existing Ranger subclasses. With a bit of work it could be pretty cool imo

[Corran]

Here are my 2 cents.

Devotion is the classic paladin, so it is obviously needed.

Vengeance is for those who want to play a somewhat edgier paladin, without having to argue with DM's about alignment and morality, and more significantly without having to have the character be mechanically affected when such player-DM arguments cannot be resolved in favor of the player's opinion. So that's needed too. After all, a the-ends-justify-the-means, desperate-times-desperate-measures paladin is a great idea of a paladin concept, IMO.

Crown was very much needed, for those who play in game worlds that have more in common with GoT than with LotR. Or to put it more accurately, crown is a great oath for a paladin for those players involved in games with some sort of political (in lack of a better word) theme.

And oathbreaker is the classic anti-paladin route that some paladins might find their characters taking (DM allowing of course). Again, very much needed if your paladin turns evil and you don't want to rebuild him simply as just another fighter (assuming the DM allows evil PCs).

Regardless of how well the oath mechanics, and the split between what is a class feature and what is an oath feature, work, I would say that all these oaths are necessary, at the very least to cover all instances I personally might have my paladin characters find themselves into. Everything more than the 4 oaths I talked above, is IMO bloat:

As for oath of the ancients, well, I don't think it was a concept all that much needed. I mean, I like it as a concept, and from what I have been hearing both here and from friends I play the game with, it's a very popular oath for sure. Personally I find the ancient theme to be a bit more narrow than the 4 oaths I mentioned previously (I basically think of it as an elf devotion paly).

The conquest was an oath no one asked for IMO. Don't get me wrong, I love how it plays mechanically, but it brings nothing new to the table. It is basically the oathbreaker vol.2. I guess for those who play AL it's something (as if I am not correctly oathbreaker is not allowed in AL), but eh...

Redemption is an oath that allows you being annoying to your teammates. It's basically a devotion paly with some very slight changes in its tenets and with adopting a very particular roleplaying attitude.

And treachery is just a joke. Ideal almost exclusively for the kind of player you really don't want to legitimize this kind of roleplaying for.