Originally Posted by
pendell
The way the Sapphire Guard is rendered would have worked under AD&D though. They are an organization with lawful authority to inflict capital punishment on evildoers. Killing innocent children causes them to lose their powers, but no one bats an eye when they Smite Evil actual adult evil people. Many of them are indeed of noble birth with all the arrogance and feudal expectations that implies, as seen in HTPGHS. Miko was not of noble birth -- so far as we know -- but she was still a samurai within her culture , and acted as a samurai, a noble, within that framework.
The way Rich displays Paladins would have worked in any version of the game, in my view, not just 3.5.