Can a paladin retire ( without falling )?

[Conradine]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?

Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

[Morty]

Let's take a look at the code of conduct:


A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.


Nothing here says "you must never, ever stop fighting evil for as long as you live". One could argue that if a paladin isn't actively using their power to further the ideals of law and good they should lose them, but that's purely personal interpretation.

[Particle_Man]

Older paladins might become teachers and trainers of younger paladins.

Well unless you are an oots dwarven paladin. Then as you get older you want to get *more* active in the fight against evil.

[Conradine]

I was thinking now...

are paladins ( level 3 and up ) psychopaths?

They can't feel fear, ok. But this means they can't feel...

- anxiety, which is fear of future
- love, because they can't fear losing a loved one
- doubt, fear of being wrong

A being without fear ( not simply "able to control fear", but utterly fearless ) could even be able of true empathy? He can no longer truly understand pain and suffering because he can't experience them the same way others do.

It's a scary thought.

[ezekielraiden]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?

Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

If the Paladin is choosing to retire--laying up their sword, perhaps becoming a tutor to a new generation of Paladins--then I would not see any reason why they should fall. They've massively advanced the cause of Good in the world, they shouldn't have to keep flinging themselves into danger over and over again until they Suicide By Monster.

If the Paladin is retiring while still an able-bodied adventurer who knows there are specific wrongs they could right, then I'd be annoyed with that player (whether I was DM or not). If it's just "I don't enjoy playing this character anymore" or the like, I could understand, but if it's retirement to pursue some other weird thing I'm probably not on board without a real good story behind it. As a DM, I'd openly state that I don't think "retiring young" is appropriate for Paladins, and I'd couple that with in-game overtures from the Paladin's patron saying hey man, there's still wrongs to right, you aren't off the hook yet. If 3-4 of those messages are ignored, even after an explicit command to get back in the saddle? Yeah, the Paladin falls. They'll know what's coming, it's not a surprise.

[Morty]

I was thinking now...

are paladins ( level 3 and up ) psychopaths?

They can't feel fear, ok. But this means they can't feel...

- anxiety, which is fear of future
- love, because they can't fear losing a loved one
- doubt, fear of being wrong

A being without fear ( not simply "able to control fear", but utterly fearless ) could even be able of true empathy? He can no longer truly understand pain and suffering because he can't experience them the same way others do.

It's a scary thought.

That leap of logic must have taken quite the Jump check to achieve. And I don't even like paladins. Rules-wise, the immunity to fear means immunity to fear effects from magic, monsters and such. Any further interpretation of it is just that. You can decide it works this way, of course, but why on earth would you?

[Particle_Man]

There are millennia old philosophical traditions that allow one to have love, joy and doubt without fear so no, paladins are not psychopaths. Psychopaths are incapable of guilt or empathy. Fearless people could have guilt and empathy just fine. You can love someone, recognize that you could lose them, and not be afraid of it but rather cherish each moment with them all the more.

[Conradine]

The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?

[denthor]

I was a paladin. I now serve as a temple guard. I bunk with other guards and protect the priest in town. Help out with town gaurd(but only with select units). My duties no longer take me far afield. I am a 27 year old human who wishes to further by example. Life is quiet here in the city more speaking less swords. If call upon in the middle of the night I will answer the call.

Is this a good enough back story for a retired Paladin?

[Celestia]

The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?
You're literally just quoting Redcloak now. :smallannoyed:

[Morty]

The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?


You're literally just quoting Redcloak now. :smallannoyed:

This. Moreover... paladins are immune to mechanical effects of fear. That means they're not going to become paralyzed with fear or flee in panic, even when facing a dragon or affected by a fear spell. It doesn't mean they can't be concerned for themselves and others or make rational decisions about getting to safety. Again, you can choose to interpret it as turning paladins into robots, but why would you?

[Braininthejar2]

Michael Carpenter seems to point to "yes, but not very likely".

[Jeivar]

A rickety old paladin with a walking stick can still heal, cure diseases, and inspire a younger generation to fight the good fight, and I think that is an argument for them getting to keep their powers.

[Peat]

Imo...

I don't think they can fully retire, no. Not while physically able.

Take a more backseat role in the fight against evil, like becoming a trainer or the guardian of a temple in some sleepy town? Yeah. But I think they've got to be doing something that actively furthers the cause of good in some way. And if evil finds them, they've got to answer the bell. Or even just a "you're unretired, come join the crusade" from a legitimate authority.

But just becoming a hermit with no intention of ever leaving? Or a merchant? I think that's a fall.

[Trandir]

Imo...
And if evil finds them, they've got to answer the bell. Or even just a "you're unretired, come join the crusade" from a legitimate authority.

Ok after this if I'll ever be a DM I'll rule that all paladin have a small "crusade bell" that in case of need act as a compass and an allarm for there is a crusade somewhere.

Also since we are quoting, an old man once sayed: "Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."
So probably no a paladin can keep his status as long as he is a good Lawful Good

[EndlessKng]

I would argue that the ability to overcome animal instincts when they are not helpful or appropriate, to assess them but not be compelled to obey them, is more human than obeying them. And not feeling fear doesn't mean you don't choose flight - it means you choose base on the facts of the case which is the better option.

I also feel this is a question not germane to this topic and one that should get its own if it is to continue, but that is a personal opinion.

-

To the original question - no, they shouldn't fall, if circumstances suggest that they serve better elsewhere. Teachers, ministers to the poor, keepers of sacred places, and other such duties fulfill their vows as much as going out to fight evil. Hell, even just retiring and contemplating your god or philosophy is not a violation in my view.

[dancrilis]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?
Yes.


An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?
Probably not.


Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?
Probably not.

My reasoning.

... respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
While none of them cause an issue with respecting legitimate authority (unless drafted), and all could be seen as basically honourable (although that might be debatable), refusing a heroic defence or seeking a life that avoids encountering others effectively amounts to actively choosing a life that avoids helping those in need - and as such likely a breach of the code.

[False God]

This thread (among others) is why I don't play paladins anymore.

[lord_khaine]

I would argue that the ability to overcome animal instincts when they are not helpful or appropriate, to assess them but not be compelled to obey them, is more human than obeying them. And not feeling fear doesn't mean you don't choose flight - it means you choose base on the facts of the case which is the better option.

Yeah i think this just about nails it.
Redcloak is the last person ever you would take as a reliable source on paladins.

[Morty]

This thread (among others) is why I don't play paladins anymore.

I mean, the 3E paladin class has many problem and may, indeed, be said to consist of nothing but problems... but the ones this thread argues for aren't among them.

[False God]

I mean, the 3E paladin class has many problem and may, indeed, be said to consist of nothing but problems... but the ones this thread argues for aren't among them.

Oh I know the class is problematic, but that's a fairly minor point to me as most of the time I simply enjoy running around being a white knight on a magical horse.

The larger issue is the regularity at which I see DMs and other players being just against paladins. THAT is why I don't play paladins (in 3.5) anymore. It gets really tedious trying to have fun when everyone around you seems more interested in rules lawyering your class.

[Particle_Man]

Also there is the notion of level. A level 20 aged paladin might not be up to a cr 20 challenge but could a lower one. A level 1 aged paladin might have a harder time.

[legomaster00156]

A paladin can retire from the constant struggle of fighting evil on the front lines, but they can never stop serving the cause of Good. Otherwise, the paladin powers are just wasted on them, and they probably wouldn't even notice losing them. How they choose to continue to further the cause of Good is up to the individual.

[GrayDeath]

Of course they CAN.

Just that about no Paladin still a Paladin willingly WOULD.



Now in the very theoretical circumstance that they have aged and no longer are as valuable on the front lines, the Old Paladin Teacher is likely to do MORE good than one more Paladin fighting Evil directly, so no Paladin HAS to retire ewither. ;)

[Helluin]

{scrubbed}

Maybe it helps to find a group with healthy dynamics to play a Paladin with, and see what others expect of you and how these expectations conflict with your own reading.

/rant

[Efrate]

Well someone has to train the new recruits. That's perfectly normal and righteous. No issues.

So not want to teach? Be something like a mayor or a town elder. Fight for good with words. Ensure the laws and the system are just and fair for all. Also perfectly acceptable.

Going into the woods to live as a hermit can be sketchy imo for a normal paladin, but is perfectly fine for say a paladin of freedom. Or maybe you venerate nature and wish to become closer to the source of your beliefs, contemplate, and Help as you can. A paladin of ehlonna or corelleon would be perfectly fine getting closer to their diety/source of power. Maybe you write a book or memoir to assist others and will inspire generations.

Going to go live in a hole and just exist nothing more? You do not fall unless you would be running from legitimate good authority or something similar, or knowingly taking steps to flee a fight you should be taking.

It is also well out of character for someone whose drive was to stand tall and fight for what's right no matter what to just say I am done. But again, it's not causing a fall in most cases, just out of character.

[pabelfly]

This thread (among others) is why I don't play paladins anymore.

Yeah, everyone is so keen for a tier 4 class to lose it's class features and spellcasting and just turn the paladin into a Fighter without fighter feats.

[Jay R]

There are ten thousand ways this could happen. And other ways that it could appear to happen.

Suppose a paladin realizes that he has gotten old and slow, and would be a liability to his team mates. So he retires to a small village where he trains the local guards in how to defend against raiders, and heals the villagers.

This is far more paladin-like behavior than going out with a group and possibly getting them killed through his lessened abilities.


Another paladin has earned great glory and honor, such that the troubled king will listen to him. Retiring and becoming a courtier who can talk the king out of his occasional temptations to injustice may be the greatest work he can do.


A third paladin retires to a cave, as a hermit. People occasionally come to ask for his help, but he refuses to leave.

Twenty years later, he sends a message to the town. He's dying, and needs somebody to replace him. Every night he has fought against the demon who tries to escape from the cave at midnight.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a second and simply ask: If a Paladin has become old and wants to truly retire from that life, what does he even need to keep those powers for? He can do all those things like training village guards or advising a king, even healing the sick (with knowledge rather than magic), and he doesn't need a divine hotline to the heavens for any of it.

Honestly, being a divine champion isn't and shouldn't be seen as a lifelong calling. It's a job for the young and fit, and every Paladin should have a plan for the day they might need to put the greater good ahead of their honor and oaths, or for the day that their services are no longer needed. Because it's just too much for a person do what a Paladin does forever. And more importantly, they deserve to find peace in their later years. They've freakin' earned it at this point!


As a DM, I would probably say that there's a special ritual that a retiring Paladin can undertake to pass along their powers to a group of initiates. To somehow give the next generation a small piece of their abilities, like a calm reservoir of faith and experience. To go out without falling, but rather by relinquishing. This would be seen as an honorable way to end one's career. A Paladin's final duty.

It's not like an atonement spell couldn't restore their powers when the ancient demon lord or whatever finally awakens and they're inevitably called out of retirement. :smallwink:

[The Glyphstone]

It does seem odd that the only expected outcome here is that the loss of paladin powers is a punishment for retiring. Why can't it be a mutually agreed-upon separation? The elderly paladin returns the gift of power he was given all those years ago, freeing it to be handed out again to a younger champion wherever they might be or whenever they might appear.

[Anymage]

As others have noted, Michael Carpenter is a good image of the retired paladin, and would be even if he weren't so pointedly forced into retirement. Someone who feels the call of Good so strongly that they become its exemplar won't ever truly turn their back on the cause of goodness unless it's a truly dramatic fall (and most of those dramatic falls will wind up being "for the greater good" sorts), but they can hang up their sword. I'd view it as less of a fall and more of a decommission, though; they don't call on their powers anymore, but can reactivate without problem if they're needed to fight a grave injustice.

RAW, going off to become a hermit doesn't violate the codes of law or goodness, and makes it easier to avoid associating with bad guys. Note that only gross violations of the code are fallworthy, which is a huge DM call as to when something is too far. (Compare to any evil act at all, which is still a heavy DM call and a PITA with edgelord groups.) So pure RAW, that hermit probably hasn't done anything that causes him to lose his mount.


Yeah, everyone is so keen for a tier 4 class to lose it's class features and spellcasting and just turn the paladin into a Fighter without fighter feats.

The odd thing is that the cleric has a very similar "grossly violate your god's code of conduct, it's fallsville for you" clause. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen that enforced, or even seriously talked about. Paladin falling, much like monkey pawing wishes seems to be a pre-3e "balance" mechanic that stuck in people's heads far longer than it should have.

[Sutr]

Don't see anything in the paladin code that requires looking for trouble. Don't see a thing that says that a paladin can not run from every bad guy after saying that's not nice as punishment. He might need to help those with a legitimate need but is saving that warrior from a demon really helping, he could succeed on his own. He could be a devil nothing requires him getting within range to find out. Could even retire to a lawful good plane of existence.

[pabelfly]

The odd thing is that the cleric has a very similar "grossly violate your god's code of conduct, it's fallsville for you" clause. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen that enforced, or even seriously talked about. Paladin falling, much like monkey pawing wishes seems to be a pre-3e "balance" mechanic that stuck in people's heads far longer than it should have.

I actually like monkey-paw wishes. Blank checks are way too broken without the threat of the wish backfiring.

[Enixon]

The odd thing is that the cleric has a very similar "grossly violate your god's code of conduct, it's fallsville for you" clause. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen that enforced, or even seriously talked about. Paladin falling, much like monkey pawing wishes seems to be a pre-3e "balance" mechanic that stuck in people's heads far longer than it should have.

I've at least heard the occasional story of a Cleric of a God of Goodness and Mercy getting hit with the fall-stick for being too much of a murderous edgelord. Now Druids on the other hand... not sure I've ever heard of a druid getting punished for "failing to respect nature".


Or a Bard or Barbarian "falling" to a Lawful Alignment in 3.x and loosing their powers either for that matter

[legomaster00156]

I've at least heard the occasional story of a Cleric of a God of Goodness and Mercy getting hit with the fall-stick for being too much of a murderous edgelord. Now Druids on the other hand... not sure I've ever heard of a druid getting punished for "failing to respect nature".


Or a Bard or Barbarian "falling" to a Lawful Alignment in 3.x and loosing their powers either for that matter
It's only divine classes that can lose powers. Other alignment-restricted classes simply can't take more levels.

[Enixon]

It's only divine classes that can lose powers. Other alignment-restricted classes simply can't take more levels.

Ah, yeah I just double checked that and misremembered Bards losing their spells, though Barbarains (at least in 3.5 and Pathfinder) also lose their rage, they do keep the other stuff like Uncanny dodge though.

[Pex]

Older paladins might become teachers and trainers of younger paladins.

Well unless you are an oots dwarven paladin. Then as you get older you want to get *more* active in the fight against evil.

I'm playing a dwarven paladin in a 5E game. In today's session I had reason to jump onto a tree on purpose. Durkon would be aghast.

Anyway . . .

When in the process of saving the world many times you get put to sleep for a long time separated from your true love, your best friend is dominated to fight against you, the Order you work for is exposed to have been infiltrated by your enemy, your new best friend ends your friendship because of the actions of your old best friend while dominated who then dies soon after you make up saving lives, after literally helping to save the multiverse from annihilation, when the opportunity arises to get back with your true love I think you darn well have earned your retirement and can pass your shield along to a new younger paladin to continue the Righteous Cause.

[KillianHawkeye]

Durkon would be aghast.

Durkon was a vampire, not a ghast! :smallwink::smallbiggrin::smallwink::smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

It does seem odd that the only expected outcome here is that the loss of paladin powers is a punishment for retiring. Why can't it be a mutually agreed-upon separation? The elderly paladin returns the gift of power he was given all those years ago, freeing it to be handed out again to a younger champion wherever they might be or whenever they might appear.

D&D is really a game about accumulating power, and the idea of getting to level 20 and then losing your powers willingly is anathema to the core concept. It would be like getting to level 100 in Diablo II and then breaking all your equipment.

[Particle_Man]

Mind you with that LG afterlife awaiting there is an argument for even older paladins to keep fighting the good fight - dying and going to Celestia *is* the retirement plan.

[NichG]

The idea of paladin powers as being a special gift that costs the deity (in the sense that it would be passed on, rather than just 'now there are two paladins') is weird given that it's a class. That new recipient isn't suddenly jumping to the old paladin's level. And given that you can have clerics of an ideal, and clerics channel much stronger divine abilities, seeing paladins as an expensive resource that have to be micromanaged by the deity seems a bad take. If you want that fluff, something like a granted template (Saint, for example) seems more appropriate to pair with it mechanically.

It makes more sense to me to say that the fullness of a paladins power or cleric's power doesn't come only from the deity, but comes from the human too. A retired paladin is still a massive net positive resource for a deity, maybe even more than an active one in some ways (those younger, foolish ones keep getting themselves killed while drunk on their fear immunity). So falling or not falling isn't about being fired from a job, it's about whether the human side of the equation is generating power that is compatible with the deity. Which is why paladins can sometimes become Blackguards if they fall - ultimately the power (levels) is theirs.

As long as they still exemplify good through social order, that should remain the case - and the way that social order permits retiring and letting the younger generation take up the banner is a direct demonstration of that ideal. So nothing about it should intrinsically sour the energy, and its not in the deity's interest to quibble over that or they risk an emplaced source of miracles, faith, and influence that comes simply from people interacting with the paladin in day to day life.

[Jay R]

I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a second and simply ask: If a Paladin has become old and wants to truly retire from that life, what does he even need to keep those powers for? He can do all those things like training village guards or advising a king, even healing the sick (with knowledge rather than magic), and he doesn't need a divine hotline to the heavens for any of it.

First, let's clear away the side issue. You can heal more people more effectively with knowledge plus divine magic than you can with knowledge alone. Knowledge of the Heal skill won't replace spells like Remove Blindness/Deafness or Break Enchantment or Remove Curse. Owl's Wisdom, Discern Lies, and Zone of Truth can help you advise the king, and in the scenario as I gave it, the Paladin had influence because the king had seen his powers. Continued use of them would in fact help keep his influence. Bull's Strength, Bless, and Prayer will help the guards you're training when the raiders come.

So yes, the "divine hotline to the heavens" will make him better at all of these.

But as I say, that's just a side issue. Let's get to the real subject.

This question was posted in the D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 section, and the question is, "Can a paladin retire ( without falling )?"

I gave three examples of paladins retiring in ways that would not compel them to fall within those rules. That's the answer to the actual question.

In response, you gave a new idea about inventing homebrew rules for a special ritual not found in those rules:


As a DM, I would probably say that there's a special ritual that a retiring Paladin can undertake to pass along their powers to a group of initiates. To somehow give the next generation a small piece of their abilities, like a calm reservoir of faith and experience. To go out without falling, but rather by relinquishing. This would be seen as an honorable way to end one's career. A Paladin's final duty.

That's a very interesting new rule, not found in the 3e/3.5e/d20 suite of games. It might make a fine new homebrewed approach.

But we weren't asked about new approaches, or about homebrew. We were asked if a paladin could retire without falling, in the rules for this set of related games.

The answer is yes. As I said at the start of my post, "There are ten thousand ways this could happen. And other ways that it could appear to happen."

You are correct that you can invent other things that could happen, which are not listed in the rules for these games. You showed a way a DM could invent a new way that he might accept losing those powers in a way not included in the rules. I don't disagree.

But it doesn't refute my statement that retiring doesn't mean losing his paladin powers within these rules.

[ezekielraiden]

So, let's go by the (incredibly ill-defined) "code" present in the books. Because I'm pretty well convinced it would actually be against the rules to have a Paladin fall for this.


Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin's code of conduct requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who continually offends her moral code. A paladin may only accept henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin's mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description, page 201), as appropriate.
Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than Paladin may never again raise her Paladin level, though she retains all her Paladin abilities. The path of the paladin requires a constant heart. If a character adopts this class, she must pursue it to the exclusion of all other careers. Once she has turned off the path, she may never return.

At least as far as the code itself is concerned, falling only occurs for gross violations (something almost all pro-falling DMs forget) of the code. However, the only things we know about this code are (1) you have to keep your LG alignment, and (2) you have to respect legitimate authority, act with honor--with clarifying text indicating that dishonorable acts that are mostly about dishonesty/lack of integrity or "dirty fighting" tactics--and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

So, for those of you who think retirement is such a clear violation, what part of the code is being violated? Retirement isn't evil, so that's right out. Though it's conceivable that in some cases, a Paladin could have been ordered to continue working and thus would disrespect legitimate authority by retiring, it's certainly not mandatory, so for the sake of argument assume that no such order has been given by a commanding officer or church hierarch or whatever.* Retirement doesn't resemble any of the example acts that Paladins must avoid, as it shouldn't involve any lying, cheating, use of poison, or any other dirty or underhanded tricks. It needn't involve any association with evil people, and indeed very much could involve specifically encouraging others to follow the Lawful Good path. And retirement doesn't have anything to do with trying to avoid or refuse punishing people who threaten or harm innocents--a retired Paladin would make a great city watch officer, for example.

So...lay it on me. Where is the code violated? Literally the only thing I can see is if you construe "The path of the paladin requires a constant heart" into an explicit command in every Paladin's code: "Adventure Until You Die." And that seems like a pretty self-evidently non-Good requirement to ask.

As long as the Paladin works to ensure that, while living in retirement, she continues to fight injustice/defend good order/protect the innocent (such as by training future Paladins, contributing to city law enforcement, and/or organizing townsfolk to address issues with justice and fairness), I don't see any way one can argue that she has "grossly violate[d]" the code of conduct. Sure, she's not taking up the epic quests anymore--but she's working as much as an actually aging,

Note that I'm not saying it's okay for a Paladin to retire at age 25 or some crap. This is something that should only even be considered when you've got someone in their 50s or 60s, where they've lived a good, long life, and clearly put in the time and managed to somehow survive all that adventuring. At that point, serving Law and Good will be best done by sharing, communicating, and inspiring--not by continually flinging themselves into dangerous thing after dangerous thing, until they finally die, and give a bunch of monsters some powerful loot to sell or use to hurt people.

In fact, if anything, I would argue that knowingly going into adventures where your skills are no longer up to the task is the deed that merits a Fall. You're deceiving people (telling them, whether by direct words or by your actions that you're stronger than you are), and you're knowingly and willfully enabling evil to grow stronger by taking your equipment and resources. How is that upholding any code of conduct worthy of the name?

*Note that it is perfectly fine for a DM to say, "In my setting, all Paladins are under the command of the Crown/the Church, so just up and choosing to retire without their approval--which is never/almost never given--would be disrespecting legitimate authority." But you can't turn that into "so for ANY Paladin at ANY table, retirement would be disrespecting legitimate authority." It's a perfectly valid reason for saying Paladins can't retire at your table, but it's not a valid reason for saying that Paladins just aren't allowed to retire at all.

[Ravens_cry]

I had a paladin retire after getting married to the literal harpy (https://pathfinder.fandom.com/wiki/Undrella)he'd been courting all through the campaign via letters. In fact, he even refused immortality offered by a local force of good, because "What is eternity if it is eternity alone?"

[Peat]

I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a second and simply ask: If a Paladin has become old and wants to truly retire from that life, what does he even need to keep those powers for? He can do all those things like training village guards or advising a king, even healing the sick (with knowledge rather than magic), and he doesn't need a divine hotline to the heavens for any of it.


I kinda agree with this line to a point, but at the end of the day, it's not whether they need those powers, it's whether they'd earned them and whether they've forfeited them.

And ultimately, I don't see anything about being a village healer or advising kings or the rest of it as being forfeiture. I feel like the level of retirement needed before they powers go would have to be a lot deeper than that.

[ThanatosZero]

The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?

You left out the free will component. Even if you are completely fearless, one can chose to confront something or not.

[Saintheart]

I've at least heard the occasional story of a Cleric of a God of Goodness and Mercy getting hit with the fall-stick for being too much of a murderous edgelord. Now Druids on the other hand... not sure I've ever heard of a druid getting punished for "failing to respect nature".

There is one such character in the Red Hand of Doom.

The Ghostlord.

Basically he's built on the idea that the Blighter PrC is the blackguard druid.

And I think the main reason you don't hear of clerics or druids falling is because the books don't take as much pleasure in setting out the circumstances for failure like that.

[Psyren]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

Do you have a rules quote for this?


The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?

You seem to be leaping to odd conclusions concerning what a fear immunity actually entails. Fear in D&D terms is a mechanical condition, ranging from a loss of combat effectiveness when Shaken to a flat-out loss of control of your actions when Frightened/Panicked. That a Paladin gets to ignore those conditions doesn't mean they are incapable of caution or worry, it simply means that whatever emotion they do feel in a scary situation (or when subjected to fear-inducing magic) is incapable of causing them to lose effectiveness or control in this way. Aura of Courage doesn't make them into robots or alien beings.

[rel]

The odd thing is that the cleric has a very similar "grossly violate your god's code of conduct, it's fallsville for you" clause. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen that enforced, or even seriously talked about.

Probably because most PC clerics follow an ideal not a god.
I don't think I've ever seen a PC cleric that was not following an ideal.
And for 99% the ideal is 'unshakable faith in my own awesome'


Now Druids not sure I've ever heard of a druid getting punished for "failing to respect nature".


Failing to respect nature is pretty hard to define.

GM: Hey druid, you're supposed to respect nature, why did you just club that seal?

Druid: Because in nature, the strong eat the weak. And now to eat it.

---------------------------------------------------------------

To answer the OP's question, a paladin can retire.
They can't 'go evil' in their retirement but beyond that they can pretty much do whatever, it doesn't even have to be grand and world altering.

Running a bar, working a trade or just quietly living off the wealth they got on their quests are all valid jobs for a paladin in retirement.

They still help the unfortunate and punish the guilty but it is more giving good advice or encouraging others than actively fighting.

They probably do plenty of small non violent things to advance the cause of good in their daily lives.
And sure if something comes up that cannot be ignored and only violence will solve they will take out their sword, summon their mount and put things right. But that probably doesn't even happen once a decade. The rest of the time the paladin is still a force for good but not running about smiting evil.


I think a mid or high level paladin just living out their life in a sleepy town is an interesting thing for the PC's to come across.

[ezekielraiden]

Probably because most PC clerics follow an ideal not a god.
I don't think I've ever seen a PC cleric that was not following an ideal.
And for 99% the ideal is 'unshakable faith in my own awesome'
Reason #28498234 why I won't run 3.5e: Clerics make an absolute hash of "being a religious person." You'd gorram well better believe that if you want to play a cleric of an ethos, I'm going to expect you to draft up at least a summary of the dogma you follow, and if it's not at least restricting your behavior on SOME level, you aren't getting to play that. (generic you, of course)


Failing to respect nature is pretty hard to define.

GM: Hey druid, you're supposed to respect nature, why did you just club that seal?

Druid: Because in nature, the strong eat the weak. And now to eat it.
Well put, I completely agree. "Respecting nature" is an incredibly nebulous code--nature is full of parasites, exploiters, tool-users, and poisonous, self-centered things. All too often people conflate "symbiosis/mutualism" with the whole of nature, and that's just flat wrong. Nature is both green and dark, bloody red, red in tooth and claw.


They can't 'go evil' in their retirement but beyond that they can pretty much do whatever, it doesn't even have to be grand and world altering. Running a bar, working a trade or just quietly living off the wealth they got on their quests are all valid jobs for a paladin in retirement. They still help the unfortunate and punish the guilty but it is more giving good advice or encouraging others than actively fighting. They probably do plenty of small non violent things to advance the cause of good in their daily lives. And sure if something comes up that cannot be ignored and only violence will solve they will take out their sword, summon their mount and put things right. But that probably doesn't even happen once a decade. The rest of the time the paladin is still a force for good but not running about smiting evil.
I'd hope that they would do more than simply dispensing advice in the pub, but I could probably stomach it if they chose not to. Hence my examples of helping out the city watch--a veteran Paladin has almost surely seen more combat than all the watch members combined, she'd make a great trainer or drill instructor. Or a Paladin could volunteer at his local infirmary, making use of those Lay on Hands points to keep the people hale and hearty. It doesn't have to be a lot of effort, weekends when he isn't obliged to be somewhere would be plenty. Just...doing some real work to improve the lives of others and be an example of goodness, justice, fairness, and stalwart moral strength.


I think a mid or high level paladin just living out their life in a sleepy town is an interesting thing for the PC's to come across.
And I agree completely--enough that I may be stealing this. In fact, you've given me a brilliant idea that explains how A Thing could have happened in my home campaign. Cheers for that!

[Conradine]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.

[ezekielraiden]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.

I don't at all think that this is "RAI." This is how you read the rules, and is IMO pretty clearly not what the designers intended when they wrote them.

Falling comes, explicitly, from "gross violations," not minor errors. The code doesn't talk about total sublimation of your entire existence and being, nor about "immolating" anything. It talks about remaining lawful good, respecting legitimate authority, and acting with honor (=not cheating, not lying, not using poison or other underhanded tricks). You can even get, straight from the horse's proverbial mouth, a description of this stuff from the Paladins with Class article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20050224a). It says not one thing about this "immolating" or single-minded zealotry--quite the opposite, in fact. This article directly contradicts your assertions about RAI. "If you've done a good job of making your paladin admirable, your quiet displeasure should prove most compelling." Does that sound like someone who has "immolated" life, self, and identity to a higher cause?

Again, since I asked above but I guess it got lost in my wall o' text: What part of the code is grossly violated? If you don't have that, you don't have a fall. Period. That's the explicit text of the rules.

[Saintheart]

I think a mid or high level paladin just living out their life in a sleepy town is an interesting thing for the PC's to come across.

Indeed the paladin might well be the very reason the town is a sleepy town. Similar to Aragorn and the Dunedain in the North and the way they silently protected small communities like the Shire, the paladin gives the appearance of retirement but in fact is tirelessly working to kill every horrible creature that otherwise would slaughter the local residents. He doesn't have to work very hard at it because the local bestiary is a good 7 or 8 CR below him at best, and its not like he has to hunt XP anymore. He does it all in secret because he wants the people of his sleepy town to live out their lives in peace, not worrying about the monsters at their borders. It's his one-man crusade. Maybe the very reason he became a paladin is because there wasn't a local protector around in the village where he grew up, and his village was obliterated ... along with his childhood. The paladin is the bulwark against the darkness, a role he fulfils and enjoys, because it lets others have the peaceful childhood he never had.

[Morty]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.

A houserule is all this is. Nothing in the paladin code implies anything you've just said.

[Particle_Man]

I was thinking now...

are paladins ( level 3 and up ) psychopaths?

They can't feel fear, ok. But this means they can't feel...

- anxiety, which is fear of future
- love, because they can't fear losing a loved one
- doubt, fear of being wrong

A being without fear ( not simply "able to control fear", but utterly fearless ) could even be able of true empathy? He can no longer truly understand pain and suffering because he can't experience them the same way others do.

It's a scary thought.

So a monster or, say, cleric that has the remove fear power must be your worst nightmare then.

[Willie the Duck]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?

Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

I would say that the paladin oath as intended can be viewed as the most optimistic interpretation of an oath of military service. You are joining the fight for the cause (vs. evil, rather than the defense of your country), but the general structure is the same. I don't think, specifically, that you have to fight for the cause all day, every day, in the most expedient way possible, for fear of 'falling.' That monofocus on proving your worth (or else) mentality reduces paladinhood to a cartoonish level I don't think was ever intended. Worse, it pays short shrift to the value of the 'vigilant' part of what it means to be a good soldier or to do good. I think a paladin should be the kind of soldier who wants to be on the front line, rather than pulling guard duty at fantasy Camp Pendleton-expy, but they (and certainly their oath and code) recognize that the guy on guard duty isn't letting the world down by not abandoning their post to get to the action.


As to retiring, I don't know. Part of me thinks that a paladin who is too old to be a front-line badass should move to being Col. Sherman Potter, and be fighting the good fight in a different role. OTOH, Potter did retire, after the war, (albeit to work in a VA hospital in River Bend, Missouri). I think again it is more the personality of someone who would be a paladin in the first place would always find a way to keep working towards the greater good in some way. So the hermit thing sounds fairly unlikely. However, in some way, I think 'mustering out' of the paladin role, so long as you're ready to go back to the fight if need be (so, 'the paladin reserves,' as it were) is entirely reasonable. There's even in-game mechanics for it: multiclassing into another class -- you can't go back to advancing as a paladin, but you don't lose your abilities unless you've violated your actual obligations (which this clearly isn't, since there is a mechanism for doing so).

[Sir_Chivalry]

The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?

Well there's five reactions, Fight, Flight, Friend, Freeze and Flop. Three of those are fear mechanics so we can assume the Paladin fights or friends, the literal two sides of paladinhood

But frankly they don't do any of them. Fear doesn't provoke a reaction so fight or flight doesn't matter

They aren't psychopaths just because they don't react to split second instinct

[Psyren]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.

Even Archons get a day off dude :smalltongue:

You'd be better off just banning paladins than implementing passive-aggressive rulings like that.

[GrayDeath]

Even Archons get a day off dude :smalltongue:

You'd be better off just banning paladins than implementing passive-aggressive rulings like that.

I intended to write a lengthy post disassembling your assertion of RAI as anything near what you wrote, but the above sums it up much shorter and roughly as well.



Let me add, that Immolating yourself or others in almost ANY case is more likely to be a reason of falling than anything you ahve so far posted on this board about "can a Paladin Do X without falling".

[liquidformat]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

Probably not, and most likely a lot would choose to go on some crazy suicide quest at the end of their life based on a lot of the book descriptions. The issue I see here is more that the 'retire to private life' entails ignoring injustices/evils that happen around you.


An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?

It depends on how you phrase these actions, after all paladins staying behind to protect the homeland and/or temple and/or train the next generation is just as important to the fight against evil as heading off to some crusade.


Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

No as the paladin is actively avoiding evil and therefore going against his code.


I was thinking now...

are paladins ( level 3 and up ) psychopaths?

They can't feel fear, ok. But this means they can't feel...

- anxiety, which is fear of future
- love, because they can't fear losing a loved one
- doubt, fear of being wrong

A being without fear ( not simply "able to control fear", but utterly fearless ) could even be able of true empathy? He can no longer truly understand pain and suffering because he can't experience them the same way others do.

It's a scary thought.

This might make sense if Aura of Courage wasn't a Su, it is literally a magical effect that removes or blocks fear. Its not like you are loosing your ability to have feelings and understand them it is just magic suppresses/removes/blocks any fear that starts to bubble up inside of you.


The problem is, the "fight or flee" is the most basic human instinct. If you remove the "flee" part, what you have? "Fight or fight some more"?

I mean one of the basics of all martial arts and military training is to overcome your fight or flight response so this isn't exactly a very compelling argument...


It's only divine classes that can lose powers. Other alignment-restricted classes simply can't take more levels.

I have always taken this to mean that powers of divine classes are given by a god and therefore never allow people taking these classes to not have a god they believe in. It has always left a bad taste in my mouth that a lot of people try and disassociate divine classes from gods. I mean seriously without gods (or maybe spirits/ ancestral spirits) how is it 'divine'.

[lord_khaine]

All the same. Its not that i cant see the attraction in the fanatical crusader achetype of Paladins.
The one who figuratively burns for his cause and his god, ready to litterally burn up for it if thats what it takes.
But its just that its not the only type of paladin possible under current rule.

As someone suggested earlier, i think thats perhaps better represented by the saint template.

[Particle_Man]

It might also depend on the state of the world. Is it 10 seconds away from a demon invasion at all times? Or are there "waves" of problems, interspersed with long periods of peace?

[MesiDoomstalker]

It might also depend on the state of the world. Is it 10 seconds away from a demon invasion at all times? Or are there "waves" of problems, interspersed with long periods of peace?

Most settings I've seen have waves of problems but they occur randomly all over the setting. No one paladin would be expected to handle even a small fraction of these problems just from a logistical standpoint. A paladin, even with high level caster support, can't be everywhere at once nor know of every threat.

[Edreyn]

What about Yoda, episodes about Luke? It's more an exile then a retirement, but it still quite fits the question. I'd say he's as close to a "paladin" as anyone can be in Star Wars universe.

[Saintheart]

What about Yoda, episodes about Luke? It's more an exile then a retirement, but it still quite fits the question. I'd say he's as close to a "paladin" as anyone can be in Star Wars universe.

The Jedi are more like clerics than paladins. If they change alignment significantly, they get optimised 'fall' to the Dark Side, but transgressing against the Jedi Code didn't result in the midichlorians taking their bat and ball and going home.

[hamishspence]

Most settings I've seen have waves of problems but they occur randomly all over the setting. No one paladin would be expected to handle even a small fraction of these problems just from a logistical standpoint. A paladin, even with high level caster support, can't be everywhere at once nor know of every threat.

As Defenders of the Faith puts it:


Fortunately, you aren't personally obligated to right every wrong, no matter how small. That way lies madness. You don't exist in a vacuum.

[Heliomance]

I've at least heard the occasional story of a Cleric of a God of Goodness and Mercy getting hit with the fall-stick for being too much of a murderous edgelord. Now Druids on the other hand... not sure I've ever heard of a druid getting punished for "failing to respect nature".


Or a Bard or Barbarian "falling" to a Lawful Alignment in 3.x and loosing their powers either for that matter

My first ever campaign, Druids were very much in danger of falling from associating too much with undead (there was a society of free-willed undead in the setting, so this did come up). I as a Ranger ended up becoming undead for a while (I eventually got better), and lost my spellcasting and my animal companion for it. It does happen.

As to the original question - of course paladins can retire. Otherwise, how on earth are you ever going to have the iconic scene where the forces of evil are on their way, and the beloved old woodcarver, a surrogate grandfather to every child in town, who never gets angry or has a bad word to say and nobody believes would ever hurt a fly, sighs, puts down his carving, goes into his house, and comes out with the sword and shield that have been hanging over his mantlepiece for decades, fire in his eyes, standing straighter than anyone has ever seen him stand, to make sure that not a single person in his town gets hurt so long as there is breath in his body?

[Peat]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.

I know it's already been said, but there's a pretty extreme interpretation of the code at best and I'm kinda curious as to why you've got this view on Paladins and why you're looking for support on it.

But even if you are right - how do you do define the most effective service to the cause of Good and Law anyway? Both in the sense of what's best for the cause anyway - Is it about killing monsters? Saving lives? Ensuring the faithful stay faithful and that their prayers and souls go to right heavens and gods?

And what's the best way to go about it? Is spending two years killing twenty monsters more effective than being the bodyguard and counsellor to a king, nudging the scales to good in an entire nation? Or leading the town guard and being an example for a whole town? Is chasing down every imp they can find and dying in the process more effective overall than training and waiting for a threat to man so grand that only Paladins can face it?

It seems to me a Paladin could do light "retirement" activities and be doing more good than riding around looking for fights.

[Conradine]

I meant "the most effective way the paladin can think about". Yes, it leaves room for occasional training / bodyguarding duties, but it seems a very little room to me.
Miko, before the fall, was a good example. Hated or not, she was the most powerful and most effective paladin in the whole city.

[GrayDeath]

But only from a certain point of view.




Less jokingly: You Interpretation of a Paladin as a Burning Crusader of Justice is A valid one, but simply not THE Interpretation.

[Psyren]

Miko, before the fall, was a good example. Hated or not, she was the most powerful and most effective paladin in the whole city.

Miko being your standard for effective paladins is quite telling :smalltongue:

Here's the thing about Miko though - she was the most powerful in objective terms, sure, but "most effective" is highly debatable. Sure she was the strongest, but my understanding was that was actually a function of her abrasive personality - nobody liked her, so she had no friends, which (a) left her with plenty of time to train and hone her skills, but also (b) made her prone to be sent on dangerous missions in far off territory. Both of those factors led to her level being higher than the others in the Sapphire Guard, particularly due to OotSland's TTRPG world physics.

Now, you can argue that being a higher level than the others meant she must have been doing something right. But having no friends also led directly to her fall; she had nobody to check her poor judgment in murdering Shinjo, which in turn meant she was the least effective paladin at the moment she was most needed.

[Peat]

I meant "the most effective way the paladin can think about". Yes, it leaves room for occasional training / bodyguarding duties, but it seems a very little room to me.
Miko, before the fall, was a good example. Hated or not, she was the most powerful and most effective paladin in the whole city.

What Psyren said.

But, leaving that aside, I'm still curious as why do you (seemingly) want there to be only potential way to be a Paladin - and that the most extreme version at that?

[liquidformat]

My first ever campaign, Druids were very much in danger of falling from associating too much with undead (there was a society of free-willed undead in the setting, so this did come up). I as a Ranger ended up becoming undead for a while (I eventually got better), and lost my spellcasting and my animal companion for it. It does happen.

As to the original question - of course paladins can retire. Otherwise, how on earth are you ever going to have the iconic scene where the forces of evil are on their way, and the beloved old woodcarver, a surrogate grandfather to every child in town, who never gets angry or has a bad word to say and nobody believes would ever hurt a fly, sighs, puts down his carving, goes into his house, and comes out with the sword and shield that have been hanging over his mantlepiece for decades, fire in his eyes, standing straighter than anyone has ever seen him stand, to make sure that not a single person in his town gets hurt so long as there is breath in his body?

I agree with you but what you are describing is very different from:

Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

The retirement that you are describing is retirement from being the vanguard and being the front line in the fight against evil and for justice. What Conradine described in contrast is someone retiring from the fight altogether who has the intent to hide away and ignore the evil around them.

That same old man that you describe probably sneaks out every once in a while in secret to destroy the stray undead and other minor evil creatures that have encroached on the lands of his happy little town...

[Akkristor]

I wish I had my copies of The Dresden Files on hand, or an encyclopedic memory of relevant quotes.

Yes, a paladin can 'Retire', at least from adventuring.

The thing is, a Paladin isn't a Paladin because they want the cool power or membership into the god of the month club. A Paladin is a Paladin because they generally want to do good, help people, and are willing to make the personal sacrifices necessary to do so.

When a Paladin retires from adventuring, that hasn't changed. They are still going to be helping people, just in different ways. Certainly, a Paladin can hang up their sword, and if an adventuring party arrives on their doorstep asking for help, they don't have to pick it up again and lead the charge. They may offer advice, information, or even just best-wishes, but they're not under an obligation to continue the life.

You might find an old Paladin hunched over in a field doing the back-breaking labor. You might find a Paladin carrying lumber to a new house being built. You might find a Paladin tending for the sick, or soothing a choleric baby. There is more to helping people, and to being a Paladin, than killing monsters.

[Conradine]

But, leaving that aside, I'm still curious as why do you (seemingly) want there to be only potential way to be a Paladin - and that the most extreme version at that?

I simply expressed an opinion. I may be wrong.
I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling. And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

But, again, that's how I read the manual.

[Jay R]

The crucial lesson from this thread (and ten thousand others) is to discuss the paladin class with your DM, and don’t take that class unless the player and DM agree on how it plays and what it means.

[Bovine Colonel]

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

I feel like this sums up the whole thread.

More to the point, *why*? Why would you use your limited gaming time to single out a player and try to prevent them from having fun for the whole campaign like that?

[JNAProductions]

I feel like this sums up the whole thread.

More to the point, *why*? Why would you use your limited gaming time to single out a player and try to prevent them from having fun for the whole campaign like that?

Seconding this.

That just seems petty and mean.

[Calthropstu]

Yes. Be careful though, if he is old enough and falls, he may not be abld to get back up. But I here there are magic devices which can call for help...

[Psyren]

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

Nice of you to finally admit it, so will this be the last of these threads?

(I'm guessing no, but a guy can dream.)

[Calthropstu]

I simply expressed an opinion. I may be wrong.
I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling. And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

But, again, that's how I read the manual.

Why would a paladin following his code fall? "Smite evil" on every person detected as evil is not what a paladin does. What they do is stand as an example to all. When they detect evil, their first goal is to mitigate the damage that person's evil action has done. Then, they bring the perpetrator to justice. If the evil person hasn't provably broken the law, there is no justice to dispense. Then the paladin would likely leave the person alone maybe giving a speech regarding the errors of their ways and make a report to superiors to watch out for said person.
"Smite evil" on everything that moves in the underdark would be genocidal madness. Fall. Smite evil on goblin babies would also probably cause a fall. Luckily, most paladins do not do stuff like that (Though I did have a paladin in my campaign heal a person our monk was "pumping for information" so that he could be tortured more. That pally fell pretty hard for that.)

[Jack_Simth]

A paladin is bound to fight evil until his or her last day, or can he/ she retire to private life?

An old paladin who's phisically and mentally weary can choose to not join a crusade or an heroic defence and stay at home without falling?

Can a paladin become an hermit in order to never meet evil again ( without falling )?

Go back to the oath in question:

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents. (emphasis added)

Until such time as there's nobody in need, the Paladin's oath requires action from the Paladin.

Mind you, that's flexible. A Paladin could "retire" from "finding monsters to slay" to "helping out in soup kitchens" "training unemployed folks in useful tasks" or similiar (they're still helping folks in need, but not for Evil or Chaotic ends).

If monsters find those around him, though....

[pabelfly]

I simply expressed an opinion. I may be wrong.
I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling. And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

But, again, that's how I read the manual.

Imagine losing your Paladin powers because you decided to, say, go to your best friend's funeral rather than hunting evil.

The Paladin is already a terrible class, it definitely doesn't need the DM trying to ruin it.

[Calthropstu]

Imagine losing your Paladin powers because you decided to, say, go to your best friend's funeral rather than hunting evil.

The Paladin is already a terrible class, it definitely doesn't need the DM trying to ruin it.

Agreed on the gm thing. Disagree on paladins being terrible.

[ezekielraiden]

I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling.
Being defined by your calling, and being monomaniacally obsessed to the point that you burn yourself out, are two very different things. Many real people are defined by their calling, and I'd wager it's slightly more common among religious people (though only slightly). "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." It's certainly not an easy road, but that doesn't make it extreme. That makes it dedicated. You may wish to re-evaluate why you don't see a difference between those two things.


And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.
The Paladin was never this, not in old-school D&D and not in modern D&D. In early editions, you paid for that extra power with a serious drawback: you couldn't resort to under-handed tactics. All those stories about flooding a dungeon or smoking enemies out etc.? Not acceptable for an old school Paladin. You had to fight fair in a game where fighting fair is for losers and idiots, and that's a hefty price to pay. (Incidentally, that's why they were better at Reaction Rolls, aka early-ed Diplomacy: you avoided those super-lethal fair fights by making friends and building bridges. Y'know, exactly the opposite of "immolating" yourself and anyone vaguely smelling of evil.)

Modern (WotC) editions have completely abandoned the idea that the Paladin should be any more or less powerful than other classes. By singling them out for special negative treatment, you are unfairly punishing one group of players solely for their preferences, and that's kind of a dickish thing to do.


For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.
No one does or wants that. No one wants to be abused until they give up. You are literally justifying hurting people and taking away their fun by asserting that they were asking for it. That's not okay.


But, again, that's how I read the manual.
Then it can't be RAI. Rules As Intended does require divining meaning from sometimes confusing things, to be fair, but you can't argue that "well this is just how I read it" is the same as "this is not a house rule at all, it's Rules As Intended." The former is "this is just how I do things," the latter is "this is how people SHOULD do things, y'all are wrong for not doing so."


Seconding this.

That just seems petty and mean.
Agreed. It's "HAH. You thought you could have FUN being a devoted servant. Joke's on you! Service is for idiots and terminal masochists! Enjoy your completely inevitable failure!"


Agreed on the gm thing. Disagree on paladins being terrible.

I believe the "terrible" is more in the sense of "comparatively weak and difficult to make strong," rather than "terrible" in the sense of being a bad concept.

[pabelfly]

Agreed on the gm thing. Disagree on paladins being terrible.

To clarify, I love the flavour but mechanically it's a weak class.

[Bovine Colonel]

Since I missed this last comment, I'll just point out that


It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible

by definition can't have anything to do with Rules As Intended, unless you really think the game designers wanted the DM to take away someone's fun.

[Morty]

The notion that paladins have to pay for their power would hold some merit if the paladin was ever a powerful class. Which has never been the case, as depending on edition they range from weak (baseline 3.5) to solid or good but not the best (Pathfinder, 5E, 4E).

That being said, the OP has something of a point in that the 3E incarnation of the paladin shouldn't be a class. It'd work much better as an oath a member of any class can take. But interpreting such an oath as "must continuously fight evil at the expense of everything else" wouldn't become any less wrong.

[NNescio]

The notion that paladins have to pay for their power would hold some merit if the paladin was ever a powerful class. Which has never been the case, as depending on edition they range from weak (baseline 3.5) to solid or good but not the best (Pathfinder, 5E, 4E).

Counterexample: AD&D 1e, Unearthed Arcana Cavalier-Paladin (Paladin taken as a subclass for the Cavalier). Infamously overpowered. And has very annoying RP restrictions that hoses the party over.

The AD&D 2e Paladin is decent when taking the Inquisitor or Cavalier kit (subclass). The base one does kinda suck though, since it's worse than the Fighter unless the DM allows you to have your special sword.

And the 5e Paladin is one of the most overpowered classes in 5e when allowed to multiclass to shore up its weaknesses (lack of ranged options and spell slots). It basically obsoletes most martials. "Multiclassing is an optional rule, etc. etc.", but most tables allow MCing anyway (and most Internet forums assume MCing, like taking feats), and anecdotally-speaking as a DM most players will whine if you don't allow them to multiclass.

--

The original idea back in BECMI is that Paladins are effectively a Fighter prestige class that gives the Fighter limited Cleric spellcasting and associated 'holy' magical abilities in exchange for fealty to a religious organization with attendent code of conduct. So, basically, you get holy magic stuff in exchange for being restricted in playing your character in a certain way (like a holy Crusades warrior in RL, basically. Or a misinformed stereotype thereof). It might not necessarily be worthwhile depending on how you intend to play your character, and there may be better options elsewhere. (Compare this with a lot of 3.X prestige classes that also have roleplaying restrictions and mechanical requirements.)

The AD&D 1e (Fighter-)Paladin was mostly the same. Then Gygax introduced the other Paladin (the infamous Cavalier-Paladin), which was broken.

In AD&D 2e the Paladin became a class in its own right (or you can consider it a subclass of Warrior, but so is the Fighter). IIRC the base class wasn't that good (especially not to justify its roleplaying restrictions), but it had a couple kits (subclasses/prestige variants you can take if you fulfill certain requirements) that made it competitive.

Then 3e took the AD&D 2e Paladin-Cavalier (Paladin taking the Cavalier kit, not to be confused with the brokenly overpowered AD&D 1e Cavalier-Paladin) and turned it into a poorly-designed class with balance problems everywhere (granted, most of it was because a lot of restrictions were lifted for the other classes but not the Paladin).

[Peat]

I simply expressed an opinion. I may be wrong.
I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling. And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

But, again, that's how I read the manual.

Right, I just wanted to get where the opinion was coming from; whether it was just from reading the books, or arguments at the table, or some particular example of a Paladin you find resonant.

At the end of the day, if that's how you want to read it then fair enough, but as you can see it's not how most people here are reading the book.

Personally, I don't get why you wouldn't pick a reading that doesn't involve them having a "please shoot me" sign because very few people enjoy being that person, so why not pick the reading that lets people enjoy the game (particularly as Paladins in 3.5 are nowhere near that powerful) - but each to their own.

[dancrilis]

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.


I suggest you talk to your players before adopting that standard with them (either get their take on it and accept or simply don't allow paladins).

Some players want to play a paladin because there are consequences of getting things wrong (and questions to be asked about what those things were), to have the redemption arc for a few levels etc.
The question about whether or not to turn over minor criminals who would be sentanced to death in the lawful neutral society they reside in - are the moral questions they want to struggle with.

Many players do not.
They just want to play their character as they envison a paladin to be, falling is a terrible thing for the player as it robs the game of fun for them - and may occur because the GMs decides they have greater moral authority then the player, which is often insulting to individuals.

[Prince Gimli]

There are millennia old philosophical traditions that allow one to have love, joy and doubt without fear so no, paladins are not psychopaths. Psychopaths are incapable of guilt or empathy. Fearless people could have guilt and empathy just fine. You can love someone, recognize that you could lose them, and not be afraid of it but rather cherish each moment with them all the more.

Could you name some of those traditions, maybe even some good sources about them? Because that sounds interesting, and possibly worth looking into more, for my own philosophical/spiritual hobby-interest :smallsmile:

[Willie the Duck]

I simply expressed an opinion. I may be wrong.
I've always thought the Paladin is the most extreme of characters, the only one totally defined by his calling. And , in my opinion, that was also more or less the original idea of the Paladin: a class so powerful and so extreme that should be best left for NPC.

For me, a player asking to play a paladin is like someone walking with a big "please shot me" signboard on his chest. It's a provocation, it's literally asking the DM to make your life as miserable as possible untill you finally fall so hard the ground cracks.

But, again, that's how I read the manual.

I will point out that there is reasons, in-text, to think this. Going back to the original text (NNescio, I don't know if you were trying to say that paladins originated in BECMI, but they originated in OD&D), the description of the paladin (before you get to their mechanical advantages) consists of:


"Charisma scores of 17 or greater by fighters indicate the possibility of paladin status IF THEY ARE LAWFUL* from the commencement of play for that character. If such fighters elect to they can then become paladins, always doing lawful deeds, for any chaotic act will immediately revoke the status of paladin, and it can never be regained."
-D&D, supplement I: Greyhawk, Gygax and Kuntz, 1976
*OD&D did not have a good-evil axis to their alignment system, and lawful was coded as 'team good guy' at that point.

So pretty much all of the descriptor, even from the beginning, was about them doing good, always doing good, and if they do anti-good, them immediately and irrevocably losing their paladin status. Taken completely without context, this is seems to support the notion of paladins as cartoonish monomaniac/zealous do-gooders. Having read the available books on the early days of gaming (as well as spoken with some people who were actually there) I can fill in some of the rest of the picture and realize that, no, it was more akin to 'let's give an option for playing the something along the line of the kinder interpretations of the Knights of the Round Table, or John Wayne movie characters, rather than the Conan/Fafhrd & Grey Mouser-style 'son of a _____' characters we usually play'. However, it takes a long time before any of that is put to text (2nd edition puts a little nuance on the paladin, what with actual splatbooks dedicated to them and all the extra pagecount that entails).

Regardless, my point is that, yes, there is a fair bit of textual support to that interpretation. And, of course, there's no wrong way to interpret these things, particularly if anyone who might choose to play a paladin in your campaigns knows this ahead of time. However, and I mean this in as kind a way as possible -- if I, as a player, knew that a DM thought that their role as a DM should include enforcing this behavior on prospective paladins (as opposed to, as I think this is, theorycraft), regardless of whether one thinks the text supports this position, I wouldn't want to play with that DM. Not as a paladin, not at all.



No one does or wants that. No one wants to be abused until they give up. You are literally justifying hurting people and taking away their fun by asserting that they were asking for it. That's not okay.

There is a line of reasoning that some people's fun includes being challenged, and playing a paladin is kind of like playing with one hand tied behind your back or those various challenges like playing the original Zelda game without the sword, or the like. However, with paladin code enforcement, that has never worked. All it becomes is pointless lawyering over a ruleset (and alignment system) which was never designed with that level of rigor intended. Beyond that, attempting to create a mechanistic system where gamers 'play it at a different level' has never worked (see White Wolf trying to make 'mature games' and so forth).


Counterexample: AD&D 1e, Unearthed Arcana Cavalier-Paladin (Paladin taken as a subclass for the Cavalier). Infamously overpowered. And has very annoying RP restrictions that hoses the party over.

The AD&D 2e Paladin is decent when taking the Inquisitor or Cavalier kit (subclass). The base one does kinda suck though, since it's worse than the Fighter unless the DM allows you to have your special sword.

It's hard to judge a TSR-era character without their expected treasure though, as 'but you can use the best treasure' clearly was a class feature, by the design aesthetic of the time. The straight-up trading specialization for spells probably wasn't worth it, but the 2e paladin had the stealth advantage that one of the key limitations of a paladin ("A paladin does not attract a body of followers upon reaching 9th level or building a castle") was effectively not a limitation, as almost no one was playing name-level lord & commander games by 1989.

[Particle_Man]

Could you name some of those traditions, maybe even some good sources about them? Because that sounds interesting, and possibly worth looking into more, for my own philosophical/spiritual hobby-interest :smallsmile:

I would suggest “A Guide to the Good Life” by William B. Irvine for a look at Stoicism. Beyond that I don’t think I can say much on this forum.

Now I am wondering if there is room for a retired blackguard. He mostly keeps to himself, trains orcs for battle, stops a few deathless now and then if they get close to his village, and runs a bar on the side, but if the forces of good invade his domain he will pick up that unholy reaver and march into battle.

[Conradine]

Imagine losing your Paladin powers because you decided to, say, go to your best friend's funeral rather than hunting evil.

It's a thing would definitely happen at my table - and , I care to underline, I think that's the correct RAI, not a mere homebrew BUT , again, it's just my opinion.


Being defined by your calling, and being monomaniacally obsessed to the point that you burn yourself out, are two very different things.

I wrote totally defined. Almost every person is defined by what they do at least partially, but Paladin takes it up to eleven.



Then it can't be RAI. Rules As Intended does require divining meaning from sometimes confusing things, to be fair, but you can't argue that "well this is just how I read it" is the same as "this is not a house rule at all, it's Rules As Intended." The former is "this is just how I do things," the latter is "this is how people SHOULD do things, y'all are wrong for not doing so."

Ok, I'll explain it more explicitly: this is what - in my opinion - is RAI. Since I don't read minds, I can't be 100% sure of what exactly the authors were thinking.



They just want to play their character as they envison a paladin to be, falling is a terrible thing for the player as it robs the game of fun for them - and may occur because the GMs decides they have greater moral authority then the player, which is often insulting to individuals.

Actually, simply choosing to play a paladin is an explicit dichiaration of moral superiority and holier-than-thou attitude. Since actions have consequences, a player should fully expect to NOT have fun if they take that road.

[legomaster00156]

I think it's safe to say that nothing further of use will come from this thread.

[Psyren]

It's a thing would definitely happen at my table - and , I care to underline, I think that's the correct RAI, not a mere homebrew BUT , again, it's just my opinion.

You think the designers intended a class with class features to never have those class features? Even monks have it better than that.


I think it's safe to say that nothing further of use will come from this thread.

Agreed.

[Willie the Duck]

I think it's safe to say that nothing further of use will come from this thread.

Yep. That seems to be the case.

[Bovine Colonel]

Ok, I'll explain it more explicitly: this is what - in my opinion - is RAI. Since I don't read minds, I can't be 100% sure of what exactly the authors were thinking.

You keep falling back to it's my opinion, but that doesn't work as an actual defense of your opinion. Of course nobody's forcing you to defend your opinion, but it's kind of silly to expect anyone to consider what you say if it depends on them agreeing with your opinion. Like, you're expecting a discussion along these lines:

A (paladins are expected/supposed to fall) is true, therefore B (paladins fall if they retire) is also true
I disagree with A
A is my opinion, therefore B is true
oh ok

I can also show pretty easily that your "opinion" of RAI is incorrect:

Paladin players whose DMs look for reasons for their characters to fall have less fun
Players who don't have fun lose interest in the game
If people lose interest in the game, WOTC makes less money
The game designers' goal is to make money for WOTC
This means the rules are intended to build a game that does not cause players to lose interest
Which means Rules As Intended cannot include the DM making things difficult for Paladin players solely because of their choice of class.

Or, alternatively:

The game designers' goal is to produce a good game
A game is only good if all players can expect to have fun
If one player is screwed from the beginning, that player inevitably has less fun
The rules cannot be intended to include a class that can only make the game worse and not better, because that goes against the game designers' goal
Therefore, your interpretation of RAI is incorrect.



Actually, simply choosing to play a paladin is an explicit dichiaration of moral superiority and holier-than-thou attitude. Since actions have consequences, a player should fully expect to NOT have fun if they take that road.

If that's how you feel, wouldn't it be easier (and cause less drama) to just ban the class at your own table? Why bring it up here or think about hypothetical falling scenarios? Unless the drama is the part you really want, in which case I think your table might have other problems.

[pabelfly]

Actually, simply choosing to play a paladin is an explicit dichiaration of moral superiority and holier-than-thou attitude. Since actions have consequences, a player should fully expect to NOT have fun if they take that road.

Maybe I just want to play the virtuous knight interested in law and justice and helping the people around him? The sort of character that would star in a high fantasy novel, or maybe the DnD equivalent of Sir Galahad?

[enderlord99]

Yeah i think this just about nails it.
Redcloak is the last person ever you would take as a reliable source on paladins.

Followed at a moderate distance by Girard Draketooth.

[goodpeople25]

Followed at a moderate distance by Girard Draketooth.
But Tarquin told me that narratively speaking they would be the most reliable source. And yes this totally meshes with his stated view of good and evil, he said he's the main villain I think he would know.

[enderlord99]

But Tarquin told me that narratively speaking they would be the most reliable source.

Tarquin, in turn, is not a reliable source for anything.

[Particle_Man]

Now I am wondering if there is room for a retired blackguard. He mostly keeps to himself, trains orcs for battle, stops a few deathless now and then if they get close to his village, and runs a bar on the side, but if the forces of good invade his domain he will pick up that unholy reaver and march into battle.


I think it's safe to say that nothing further of use will come from this thread.


Agreed.


Yep. That seems to be the case.

Come on, guys! No one has talked about my retired blackguard idea yet. Heck, I could even see a paladin and blackguard mutually agreeing to retire contingent on the the other doing the same, but keeping their powers in case the other gets active again. They could play chess on alternate Tuesdays (to make sure the detente is maintained, not for love of chess or each other).

[Akkristor]

Yeah i think this just about nails it.
Redcloak is the last person ever you would take as a reliable source on paladins.

I can think of one Goblin who you SHOULD take as a reliable source on Paladins.

Big Ears, from Goblins: Life through their eyes.




Big Ears: I want the power to stop innocents from dying. To protect others instead of just standing around helplessly. What? Is that a dumb answer? It's stupid, right?
Fumbles: Congratulations Big Ears, you're now a first level paladin.


Chief: That's what Detect Evil feels like? A bad Smell?
Big Ears: Well, yes and no.
Big Ears: Imagine the worst thing that's ever happened to you. now imagine that it's not just happening to you, but to everyone you care about. That's kind of what Evil feels like.
Chief: Blaah! That sounds terrible! Why would anyone want to become a paladin?
Big Ears: So others don't have to.


Big Ears: (when asked how to tell apart Good and Evil-claiming-to-be-Good) The good will be quick to help others in need. They do this without hesitation, without first requiring proof that the need is genuine. But before they condemn the accused, before they bring harm to others, no matter how justified it may seem, they hesitate. They demand proof. Evil will often believe they're fighting for good, but when others are in need, they'll become reluctant, withholding compassion until they see proof of that need.
And yet, Evil is quick to condemn, vilify and attack others. For Evil, proof isn't needed to bring harm. Only hatred, and a mantra that they fight for peace and righteousness.

[NontheistCleric]

Come on, guys! No one has talked about my retired blackguard idea yet. Heck, I could even see a paladin and blackguard mutually agreeing to retire contingent on the the other doing the same, but keeping their powers in case the other gets active again. They could play chess on alternate Tuesdays (to make sure the detente is maintained, not for love of chess or each other).

Loving chess and/or another person aren't good or evil in themselves, so they could even do it for those reasons, really.

[Heliomance]

Come on, guys! No one has talked about my retired blackguard idea yet. Heck, I could even see a paladin and blackguard mutually agreeing to retire contingent on the the other doing the same, but keeping their powers in case the other gets active again. They could play chess on alternate Tuesdays (to make sure the detente is maintained, not for love of chess or each other).

Over time they begin to simply refer to it as the Arrangement

[bannondorf]

I was thinking now...

are paladins ( level 3 and up ) psychopaths?

They can't feel fear, ok. But this means they can't feel...

- anxiety, which is fear of future
- love, because they can't fear losing a loved one
- doubt, fear of being wrong

A being without fear ( not simply "able to control fear", but utterly fearless ) could even be able of true empathy? He can no longer truly understand pain and suffering because he can't experience them the same way others do.

It's a scary thought.

To your original thought yes, paladins can retire and stop fighting, so long as they uphold their oaths, as others have mentioned they may become trainers for younger paladins, healers or transition into the clergy. However with all divine magic its gifted to the wielder by a higher power, in the case of Paladins a LG, NG, or LN diety such as Heironeous, Moradin, Pelor, Ehlonna or st. Cuthbert in D&D or their Pathfinder analogs Iomedae, Torag, Sarenrae, Erastil or Abadar respectively. Each of these gods although Lawful or good in some combo have different domains and goals and as such their approved 'employee pension plans' will likely vary significantly from one to the next. For instance Pelor may be totally cool with a older paladin laying down his smite stick to focus on teaching and healing where a Heironeous may have a more single minded focus on the destruction of tryanny, which is not always sword swinging, maybe those paladins become consults to good and just lords to make sure they stay on the path, or maybe they work among the people under the yolk of a despotic ruler, using his laws against him to incite protest and revolution. there's alot of flavor your can spin out in there retirement, its their golden years after all. BUT if a paladin go apathetic, just gives up, becomes a hermit or fails to be a exemplar of his deities ideals he will likely have them revoked by said power...at which time he is just a old second class fighter with alot of cool stories...and probably a drinking problem ala Mitch from hunger games or Luke from the Last jedi.

As to sociopath...immunity is not a lack of compassion and empathy...paladins are defined by those things but it more like a divine codine, by praying they pop there 'medicine' every morning and it doesn't make the pain go away, they feel it, they just are able to ignore it, to not care. As they are compelled to fight or flight, they are not made less human or murder machines by refusing to flee, they are still able to logically determine if fighting (whatever the cost) has a higher ROI than tactically retreating, and if holding the hot gates from the Persians or solo tanking a dragon will serve the greater good more, they fearlessly hunker down, comforted by their faith they are doing the right thing, but if dying is irrational then they have wherewithal to fearlessly execute a tactical retreat to fight another day, they just dont panic. so in short, because they feel no need to flee when others would does not make they beholden to die in battle like a viking, viking died that way because their death cult diety demanded it of them, not their class.

[Conradine]

That's weird. I always imagined paladins to be much more like Kore than Big Ears. Ok, not so extreme, but very similar in cold, relentless and doubtless determination.

But, guys.

Look what paladins did to Redcloack's village. Did they fall? No.
And what Kore did in his life. Did he fall? No.


Comics and publications keep telling us "paladins are monsters" in many non explicit ways.

[Psyren]

Look what paladins did to Redcloack's village. Did they fall? No.

Incorrect. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?145182-SOD-debate-between-me-and-my-friend-(spoilers-I-guess)&p=8081896#post8081896)

[Peat]

That's weird. I always imagined paladins to be much more like Kore than Big Ears. Ok, not so extreme, but very similar in cold, relentless and doubtless determination.

But, guys.

Look what paladins did to Redcloack's village. Did they fall? No.
And what Kore did in his life. Did he fall? No.


Comics and publications keep telling us "paladins are monsters" in many non explicit ways.

But it is not the only thing they have to say about them and when you take everything they say about Paladins and put it together, it doesn't say conclusively "Paladins are monsters full stop".

[Conradine]

Unrelated question: does Blackguards have a code of conduct at all?
I always thought they could behave as they wished.

[Morty]

That's weird. I always imagined paladins to be much more like Kore than Big Ears. Ok, not so extreme, but very similar in cold, relentless and doubtless determination.

But, guys.

Look what paladins did to Redcloack's village. Did they fall? No.
And what Kore did in his life. Did he fall? No.


Comics and publications keep telling us "paladins are monsters" in many non explicit ways.


Kore is explicitly referred to, multiple times, as being an abomination of the paladin code that should have fallen long ago. Recent strips show that even more so. Whatever he is, he's not any kind of normal paladin. How do you manage to use him as an example and yet miss that?

Any arguments about paladins being monsters in OotS fall flat in the face of O-Chul, who is basically a paragon of morality, honor and nobility. Not to mention Hinjo an Lien, who are also unwaveringly good people.

Moreover, two authors writing D&D-based comics tell us precisely nothing about anything except what those authors chose to write. They're not any sort of authority on the class.

[Peat]

Actually, now I think about it, if we're using OotS as a dictionary definition of what a Paladin should be/should not be (which we shouldn't be, but there we go), it's got a Paladin who spends his entire time running a nation rather than fighting evil and who turns back from fighting on occasion to ensure he can run the nation; and a Paladin who spent most of his time as a messenger. Neither fell. So clearly Paladins can be non eternal zealots (and the only one of them there did fall).

[Psyren]

Actually, now I think about it, if we're using OotS as a dictionary definition of what a Paladin should be/should not be (which we shouldn't be, but there we go), it's got a Paladin who spends his entire time running a nation rather than fighting evil and who turns back from fighting on occasion to ensure he can run the nation; and a Paladin who spent most of his time as a messenger. Neither fell. So clearly Paladins can be non eternal zealots (and the only one of them there did fall).

Not to mention paladins who have time for friendships, relationships, festivals, fishing, going out to dinners, boardgames, reading, SEX...

[legomaster00156]

Some lessons have to be taught.
I am glad I have never been in a group where the GM has this kind of attitude towards players trying to enjoy a class. :smallsigh:

[Particle_Man]

Unrelated question: does Blackguards have a code of conduct at all?
I always thought they could behave as they wished.

Huh you are right. I mean peaceful contact with an evil outsider could mean a lot of things. Now the 1e Pathfinder anti-paladin has a code of conduct.

[GrayDeath]

I am glad I have never been in a group where the GM has this kind of attitude towards players trying to enjoy a class. :smallsigh:

Amen to that. Its A GAME (and even moreso only one tiny aspect of it), not "how to lead your Life, Dictators Version, second edition".....

Although by now I am almost sure he is merely trolling us with these threads.

Unless one has never left his own private group and not read anything but the most extreme stories involving Paladins, one cannot really ahve that view, and on top of that feel "driven to teach the truth when its about a Game, no?

[Willie the Duck]

That's weird. I always imagined paladins to be much more like Kore than Big Ears. Ok, not so extreme, but very similar in cold, relentless and doubtless determination.

But, guys.

Look what paladins did to Redcloack's village. Did they fall? No.
And what Kore did in his life. Did he fall? No.


Comics and publications keep telling us "paladins are monsters" in many non explicit ways.

To the first point, Kore might be a paladin, but Big Ears clearly is a paladin. So there might be room for cold, relentless determination; but there has to be room for a calmer, less over-the-top version as well (or exclusively), yet you've been arguing that the not-constantly-hard-charging version would break their oath and fall. So even in this comic you reference (which, as others have pointed out, is not a voice of authority), your position would exclude the one character we know to be a paladin.

To the second point, others have correctly pointed out that the paladins who attacked Redcloak's village met well have fallen, and that Kore is coded as ought to have fallen long ago (with why he hasn't a well-established mystery with the story framework).

To the last... sorta. People taking either the paladin rules about falling, or the D&D alignment system (or people in their own lives with self-assessments of being paragons of virtue) and extrapolating from those that paladins are this, that or the other thing (be it zealot, stick in the mud/stick up their____, or the kind of person who could commit warcrimes 'for the greater good') have occurred enough that these alternate interpretations have taken on a memetic life of their own. It's kind of like the 'superheroes aren't that heroic' concept -- it was a new and interesting subversion when Alan Moore's Watchmen was written. 30+ years later, after Hancock and Zack Snyder's take on Superman and so on and so forth, stories like that new Amazon show The Boys aren't really subversions of the norm any more, they are just one of two branches of how superheroes are interpreted.

Regardless, how can paladins both be monsters AND they fall at the drop of a hat? That seems to be arguing both sides of the coin?



Amen to that. Its A GAME (and even moreso only one tiny aspect of it), not "how to lead your Life, Dictators Version, second edition".....

Although by now I am almost sure he is merely trolling us with these threads.

Unless one has never left his own private group and not read anything but the most extreme stories involving Paladins, one cannot really ahve that view, and on top of that feel "driven to teach the truth when its about a Game, no?

As I've been reminded, if you think something is against the rules, report it.

[Conradine]

Regardless, how can paladins both be monsters AND they fall at the drop of a hat? That seems to be arguing both sides of the coin?

What I meant is that paladins have to be monsters TO NOT fall.
No trolling here, it's how I view the thing. I appreciated reading other's people opinions.

[SeñorSockpuppet]

Michael Carpenter in the Dresden Files Series is a good example of a Paladin.

Here's a few lovely quotes about Paladins I found on reddit a few years ago:


Honest Question: Why the Paladin Dilemma?
What is really the point of constantly doing this? Maybe I have old man Paladinman player bias. It just seems so tacky and almost never actually is a moral dilemma.

Is it time to rid the game of gotcha quests for Paladins?



Totally. Full disclosure: I'm a PhD in ethics, and I think all the time about morality in Pathfinder. Not surprisingly, my first character ever was a paladin, and it remains a favourite class of mine.

Anyway...it is absolutely bananas that people interpret the paladin alignment restriction in such a way as to even make this a possibility. Granted, the RAW on paladin alignment restriction is rather ambiguous (big surprise: most conceptual issues which involve morality tend to be at least somewhat complex)...but this interpretation is extremely uncharitable in the least.

Paladins receive their powers, and the ensuing alignment restriction, from their devotion to a deity and that deity's code of conduct (outside Golarion, this can of course be to an abstract concept and not necessarily to a deity...but for simplicity's sake, let's just talk about it with regard to deities; everything I'm going to say will basically apply to abstract concept devotion anyway).

Now, it's not like everybody's born a paladin and most just eventually lose their abilities; only the most dedicated and devout and strong-willed ever become even 1st-level paladins. These are people who are exceptional enough to have been more or less hand-picked by their deities for paladinhood, primarily due to their uprightness and dedication to the right and the good, to crib a bit from W.D. Ross. And it's not like these folks, once they become paladins, just put their feet up and rest on their laurels. By their nature, and motivated by the favour shown by their god, paladins will, for the most part, continue to strive to do good, to better themselves and the world around them. This is neither a coincidence nor a contingent fact; this is part of what it means to be a paladin.

Of course, some paladins fall: they lose their faith, or are genuinely corrupted, or just can't maintain their commitment, or somehow fall otherwise. They are mortal; they are fallible, even though they are selected largely because they are less fallible than most. Some might fall by way of terrible trauma, some by irresistible greed or ambition or other temptation, some by hubris, some by simple world-weariness. For whatever reason, fallen paladins no longer show the dedication and discipline and strength of character that made them paladins in the first place. In such cases, one can only imagine the disappointment felt by their gods, who put such trust in these mortals, only to see it betrayed...

Now, with all that in mind...we're supposed to believe that a god would strip a paladin of her powers for some kind of "gotcha" technicality, some immoral act committed in an impossible scenario? That's nonsense. There's not some obtuse contract full of legalese and surprise clauses in place: a paladin is so by virtue of her own virtue, her character, and not just her actions.

A god cannot (and would not, since gods aren't stupid petty children) expect a paladin to control the whole world, such that she would never get herself into a morally difficult or troublesome situation; indeed, if anything, a god should expect that its paladins would deliberately put themselves into such situations, since it's these circumstances which most call for a paladin. And when difficult struggles like these don't turn out to be as clean and perfect and neatly tied up as we would want (another big surprise: that's life), forcing the paladin into a difficult choice, we're supposed to believe that a god would punish its paladins for making the attempt?

Because, of course, that's the real test: making the attempt. What a god can and should expect of its paladins (and, of course, since we're talking about paladins, we're talking about lawful/good gods, it should go without saying) is that they struggle with morality, that they strive to be better, that they constantly examine their consciences and their codes of conduct and do their very best to live by those tenets, while also championing law and goodness in a world which can be very messy indeed. Such people don't go around never feeling guilt and never doing anything difficult; quite the opposite! The best paladins will always be wondering how they could have done more, been better, shone brighter!

As a result of all of that, whenever a paladin (not a fallen one, of course) finds herself in a moral dilemma (following a good order from a tyrant; killing one person to save ten from a passive death; freeing an unfairly-tried-but-probably-guilty prisoner from justice, knowing that he will likely kill again; etc.), she will do her absolute very best to make the right decision, and whatever she decides, she will likely wrack her soul for days (maybe the rest of her life?), wondering if she did the right thing, or how she might do better next time. It is patently absurd to think that her god, witnessing this difficulty and the ensuing internal struggle, will just say "Sorry! Turns out that the right thing to do was to keep that unfairly-tried killer in prison, because utilitarianism is the right normative theory and what you did was consistent with deontology but not utilitarianism! No more Smite Evil for you!" It is the struggle and the commitment which defines the paladin. If anything, any responsible deity will be more likely to punish the "paladin" who always happens to act rightly while never seriously questioning her own actions or intending to do right, than the one who does her best to make difficult choices with careful reflection and consideration, even if she might sometimes have bad moral luck.

What lesson should you take from this wall of text, GMs? It's very simple: stop punishing paladins for being good paladins who try their best to fight evil! A paladin should only fall because she has stopped being the kind of person who becomes a paladin in the first place. The paladin who, in the heat of battle, kills the innocent farmer because he happened to be possessed by a demon, and then feels guilt for her actions and reflects upon what she might have done wrong (and how she might improve next time), every bit deserves the name "paladin". But, if the paladin in your game is always self-righteous and dogmatic, never questions her own actions or "righteousness", and never even risks getting into difficult situations because of the possibility of moral messiness...well, that person lacks moral courage and discipline and virtue, and that person might be due for a couple of days without paladin powers, just to learn a little humility and get a chance to atone for and correct her ways, if for nothing else...



Iirc, the OOTS comic where Roy is in Heaven and the Archon checks his actions addresses this quite nicely - Good is about striving to be good, trying to be better.



A paladin may fall - that's what atonement is for.
A paladin that stops trying, that doesn't strive to be good anymore, that loses his ideals that shaped his character...that one isn't a paladin anymore.

A paladin is lawful, and is bound by a code...but first and foremost, a paladin is someone earnestly trying to do good.

[Bovine Colonel]

What I meant is that paladins have to be monsters TO NOT fall.

What do you think the word "good" even means? Because "fights evil" is not enough. A person whose only purpose is "fights evil" can never be a Paladin in the first place. This is the whole reason Miko falls - she becomes obsessed with "fights evil" and stops acting in a way consistent with Good.

[Heliomance]

What I meant is that paladins have to be monsters TO NOT fall.
No trolling here, it's how I view the thing. I appreciated reading other's people opinions.

How on earth do you end up at that conclusion? The defining quality of Paladins is that they are Good. Let me say that again. The defining quality of Paladins is that they are good people.

How in the name of Gygax do you go from "shining example of all that is good, defender of the weak, champion of righteousness, beacon of hope" to "monster"?

[Akkristor]

What do you think the word "good" even means? Because "fights evil" is not enough. A person whose only purpose is "fights evil" can never be a Paladin in the first place. This is the whole reason Miko falls - she becomes obsessed with "fights evil" and stops acting in a way consistent with Good.

The goal of a Paladin should not be to destroy evil.

The goal of a Paladin should be to REDEEM evil.

[AnimeTheCat]

The goal of a Paladin should not be to destroy evil.

The goal of a Paladin should be to REDEEM evil.

I think this is more an argument between the goals of good and evil. By its nature, good should be more focused on construction, bonds, selflessness, and overall positivity, while evil more commonly aligns itself with breaking down, fear, self-centeredness, and overall negativity. This is not to say that the former cant also exhibit some of the latter's traits (or vice-versa) but that it is typically more expected that good will have a more constructive or positive effect, and evil a more destructive or negative effect.

To me, at least, that's a closer approximation. "good" (lowercase "g") can be be negative, self-centered, and destructive while still technically being good, but "Good" (as in the upper case "G") should be more heavily focused on not being those things.

[Particle_Man]

I think if comic book Superman (not movie Superman!) is used as a guide, one can have a normal civilian life as well as be the hero.

[Empyreal Dragon]

Likely just how my own setting works but...


With how I interpret the admittedly rather loose paladin code, and sticking to your dieties ethics....

No. A paladin fighte until the day they die or stops being a paladin. It's a full time endeavor.

[Conradine]

As a result of all of that, whenever a paladin (not a fallen one, of course) finds herself in a moral dilemma (following a good order from a tyrant; killing one person to save ten from a passive death; freeing an unfairly-tried-but-probably-guilty prisoner from justice, knowing that he will likely kill again; etc.), she will do her absolute very best to make the right decision, and whatever she decides, she will likely wrack her soul for days (maybe the rest of her life?), wondering if she did the right thing, or how she might do better next time.



Paladin's dilemma question: if a paladin knows, for sure, that a prisoner is innocent and a good person ( highly unlikely to commit crimes ), and that prisonar has been unfairly tried, then the paladin must free him?
Even if the authority that imprisoned him is legittimate?

[Sutr]

Nope good people are allowed to make mistakes, he's got to tell the authorities and how he knows and how the trial was unfair. He may have to try to pull a "Mattlock" full confession out of the one who actually did the crime. Non-lethally storming the jail may be an option to prevent an execution, but that has so many more consequences. Of course if it's an Evil legit authority why would they regard that as legit.

Better question for you he knows the person isn't guilty of that murder, but that person is evil and has killed. What do you think the paladin has to do?

[SeñorSockpuppet]

A paladin pursues JUSTICE, not the law of the local land. He doesn't interfere with the local laws inasmuch they do not contradict JUSTICE.

If the legitimate authorities imprison an unfairly tried person, no matter if he is innocent or not, a Paladin can definitely attempt to get that prisoner a proper trial.



However, a paladin is not omnipotent, therefore, he is well within his rights to perform moral triage:

Is the situation:

1) Imminent? E. g. is the prisoner who was unfairly tried scheduled to be executed the next morning?
Or is he "merely" the victim of a drunk barfight who was mistaken for the aggressor and put into
a cell for a week because the town guard doesn't like him?

2) Important? E. g. is the prisoner treated well and does not expect any immediate harm; meanwhile people are starving in the streets and the castle is on fire?

3) Within his ability to affect?
E. g. is the prisoner thousand miles away in a different continent, and he has heard about this unfairly tried prisoner from a merchant who may be inebriated/mistaken/exaggerating/the cousin of said prisoner?

================================================== =====================

The paladin should be benevolent => wanting the wellbeing( of others and himself), and helpful, but he needn't be stupid about it. He should not be above asking for help himself, if necessary.

[Conradine]

Better question for you he knows the person isn't guilty of that murder, but that person is evil and has killed. What do you think the paladin has to do?

Seriously speaking...
it depends upon the kind of punishment.

If the punishment includes torture a paladin should always try to prevent it.

[FaerieGodfather]

I mean, the 3E paladin class has many problem and may, indeed, be said to consist of nothing but problems... but the ones this thread argues for aren't among them.

I'd say that depends entirely on whether or not the DM in question thinks they are-- and every single one of these mind-numbing and soul-draining threads was started because someone's DM did.

Amongst the problems of every pre-4e version of the Paladin is that they produce arguments like this and real people are stuck trying to play Paladins under Dungeon Masters who think arguments like this are perfectly reasonable. I have had a lot of arguments like this in the past twenty years, and like I snarked in the "Evil of Lawful Good" thread... the only things (almost) everyone can agree upon are that the alignment rules are not the source of the problem and that above all else the alignment rules must not be changed in any significant fashion.


The notion that paladins have to pay for their power would hold some merit if the paladin was ever a powerful class. Which has never been the case, as depending on edition they range from weak (baseline 3.5) to solid or good but not the best (Pathfinder, 5E, 4E).

It's funny that you just start counting with 3.5, like neither Paladins nor the game itself existed before that or that problematic attitudes couldn't have been holdovers from AD&D.

Never change, GitP.

[hamishspence]

It isn't just a paladin thing - clerics have the issue too. The kind of DM who makes a Paladin fall for "retiring from active adventuring" - is probably the kind of DM who would make a cleric fall for the same thing.

[Conradine]

Aren't these discussions funny , anyway?

[FaerieGodfather]

Aren't these discussions funny , anyway?

No, not really. They're the reason I don't run D&D games in my house anymore.

[pabelfly]

Aren't these discussions funny , anyway?

Feels to me like people are taking away the fun of people that want to play Paladins by doing the "gotcha, you've fallen" shtick. And a Paladin that has no Paladin abilities is only slightly better than a Commoner.

[Willie the Duck]

It's funny that you just start counting with 3.5, like neither Paladins nor the game itself existed before that or that problematic attitudes couldn't have been holdovers from AD&D.

Never change, GitP.

Wait, you think the paladin started in AD&D? Never change, man. Never change. :smallbiggrin:



Aren't these discussions funny , anyway?

This is my first discussion with you, but from what others have said, I'm lead to believe that it is something of a pattern. In the sense that everyone else got to have a feeling of comradery in coming together to thoroughly excoriate or repudiate the foolish OP's redonkulous notions of paladinhood, that's something. You apparently got something out of the thread as well. Overall, though, I think the thread is satisfying like eating a big old bag of cheese puffs -- there's clearly some satisfaction in the activity (otherwise you wouldn't participate), but you always feel a little gross later and wonder why you did.

[Morty]

I'd say that depends entirely on whether or not the DM in question thinks they are-- and every single one of these mind-numbing and soul-draining threads was started because someone's DM did.

Amongst the problems of every pre-4e version of the Paladin is that they produce arguments like this and real people are stuck trying to play Paladins under Dungeon Masters who think arguments like this are perfectly reasonable. I have had a lot of arguments like this in the past twenty years, and like I snarked in the "Evil of Lawful Good" thread... the only things (almost) everyone can agree upon are that the alignment rules are not the source of the problem and that above all else the alignment rules must not be changed in any significant fashion.

You seem to be attacking a position I didn't take. Nowhere did I say that the alignment rules aren't a problem or that they shouldn't be changed. In fact, I believe that alignment's place is in the garbage. But this thread relies on interpretations of the paladin class that seem purposefully as outlandish as possible.


It's funny that you just start counting with 3.5, like neither Paladins nor the game itself existed before that or that problematic attitudes couldn't have been holdovers from AD&D.

Never change, GitP.

Or maybe because I'm not as familiar with older editions of the game and thus avoid making declarative statements about it. Your hostility seems unwarranted.

[SodaQueen]

In my opinion, if a Paladin spend even a single day without actively serve the cause of Good and Law in the most effective way, he / she falls, period. That not as homerule but as general, RAI rule.

Being a Paladin means immolating more than your life to the cause, it means immolating your own self and identity to an higher cause. It requires absolute, unrelenting devotion and constant vigilance.Right, never playing in one of your games. And I mean, I guess it's technically RAI but you can interpret anything to mean anuthing with a far enough logical leap.

As to the OP sure why not? I'd certainly allow for that in a game.

[ezekielraiden]

Aren't these discussions funny , anyway?

Not really. Equal parts saddening (people still think tabletop RPGs exist in order to make at least one player miserable) and heartening (the *vast* majority here have called you out on how incorrect and even petty this behavior is, so at least I'm not drowning in the negativity, which is refreshing.)

"Funny" is so far away from describing how these threads make me feel, I struggle to express it in words. This thread has *reduced* the amount of laughs I have in a given day.

[Ventruenox]

Mödley Crüe: This discussion has run its course.