Paladin of Balance

[2xMachina]

Wish they build a TN Paladin. They've all the corner alignments, but none of the middle ones. Extreme center is still an extreme alignment.

So, what say you to a TN Paladin?

If he Smites evil, his next smite must be smite good before he can use any other smite.
If he Lay on hands, he needs to use the opposite.
If he uses an Aura, he needs to swap to the opposite next round.

Code: Balance in all things. Kill the lich that's too powerful (not permanently. Just keep his power in check). Help the same lich when it's phylactery is endangered by adventurers.

Help the underdog, whether it's good or evil, lawful or chaotic.

[hamishspence]

This might be taking "balance" a bit too far.

However Dragon Magazine does have rules for paladins of all 8 alignments that aren't LG.

I'll look up the code for the TN paladin later.

[Tyrandar]

Your system is interesting, and the code sounds right, but his abilities are a little too random. I get the feeling that a Balanceadin's smite would probably work on aligned creatures, like Word of Balance.

EDIT: Found the DM section hamish was talking about!

http://dndrealmsofadventure.tripod.com/incarnate.htm

[kamikasei]

If he Smites evil, his next smite must be smite good before he can use any other smite.
If he Lay on hands, he needs to use the opposite.
If he uses an Aura, he needs to swap to the opposite next round.

KILL IT WITH FIRE.

If nothing else, this approach makes the unworkable assumption that any deviations from "balance" that need correcting are evenly mixed at the individual level and change from round to round. If the problem is that there's an army of evil (or good!) beings coming at you, or that a whole village have been injured or stricken with disease, what is such a paladin supposed to do?

This isn't a philosophy, it's a pathological compulsion.

[Eldan]

It sounds like an Outlandish approach at least. (Haha! Planescape in-joke.)

I wouldn't make the "balance" thing that strongly binding. If an army of Tanar'ri invades a prime world and threatens it's balance, you wouldn't want to smite a survivor on the side of good for every demon.

Make it a balance thing, rather. Make a code which says that the Paladin has to promote the balance of alignments, and leave it that way. A roleplay requirement, not such strongly binding rules.

[Killer Angel]

This isn't a philosophy, it's a pathological compulsion.

Look, a Paladin of Balance! ...I wonder if he's going to help me, or kill me...

[2xMachina]

Well, you can always use your useless Smite on them regardless.

Smite EVIL!
Smite Good (no effect, wrong allignment)
Smite EVIL!

Remove Disease!
Inflict Disease on self (immune)
Remove Disease!

It's like a Shadow Sun Ninja. In fact, you should go get Tomb-Tainted Soul, or have an Undead mount.

[Narmoth]

I'd kill that paladin
This paladin is far worse than the long stick compulsive lawful stupid paladin that everyone already hates

[2xMachina]

It sounds like an Outlandish approach at least. (Haha! Planescape in-joke.)

I wouldn't make the "balance" thing that strongly binding. If an army of Tanar'ri invades a prime world and threatens it's balance, you wouldn't want to smite a survivor on the side of good for every demon.

Make it a balance thing, rather. Make a code which says that the Paladin has to promote the balance of alignments, and leave it that way. A roleplay requirement, not such strongly binding rules.

I wouldn't say smite every commoner for every demon.

But Help the Underdog/Balance

Demons invade Material plane? Fight them off.
Good adventurers attack a evil goblin village? Fight them off.

[Devils_Advocate]

A paragon of Stupid Neutral, then? Joy.

Wanting to maintain the balance between Good and Evil is a rather odd goal, to put it mildly. I'm not going to say that no one in real life has ever wanted to do that, because some people are really weird. But I am going to say that such individuals are surely very rare, and furthermore would be regarded by most people as nuts. Not that dedication to Evil is any better, obviously, but even sadistic sociopathy seems easier to relate to than Stupid Neutral.

Like wanting to fill the universe with the highest possible number of paperclips, it's not that it isn't a viable philosophy; it's that no remotely normal human being would adopt it. And if it's one of the fundamental impulses built into the cosmos, it rather makes one wonder what the cosmos has been smoking.

"Always help the underdog" is particularly ludicrous. Were I a powerful hero willing to help any random peasant who wants to to establish his own kingdom, I'd expect to wind up fielding a lot of such requests. On the other hand, if you fight to preserve the current balance of power, whatever it may be, then you're just fanatically anti-change.

In 3E, at least, I believe that the rilmani's stated goal is simply to preserve the middle ground between opposed extremes, which is considerably less wacky than either of the above options, although wanting to do this regardless of what the extremes are is still hella weird.

[Heliomance]

This comes up occasionally, and I alwAys make the same point. In a universe where good and evil are fundamental forces, a policy of dedicated neutrality can make sense. If good getting a fundamental advantage over evil will result in the multiverse falling into oblivion as the balance of the planes is irrevocably disrupted, then actively trying to keep a balance is entirely understandable.

[kamikasei]

If good getting a fundamental advantage over evil will result in the multiverse falling into oblivion as the balance of the planes is irrevocably disrupted...

...then you wouldn't expect any Good person to want that to happen, and shouldn't need a separate camp of Neutrals to police the benevolent altruists to keep them from instigating universal Armageddon.

[Telonius]

I'd prefer that such a paladin's mission would be hunting down and killing Lawful Stupid, Chaotic Stupid, Stupid Good, Stupid Evil, and yes, Stupid Neutral characters. Anything taken to extremes - even neutrality - threatens the good of the whole. This character will despise the high priest of Pelor as well as the slave of Baator, the libertine as well as the ascetic. I'd give it a "Smite Extremist" ability that functions only on the extreme alignments (LG, LE, CG, and CE).

[2xMachina]

It's the recognition of the rights of evil.

Just cause they're evil, it doesn't mean you can kill them.

EDIT:

Blergh.

Code: Neutrality. Choose your path. There are many ways to achieve it.

[The Cat Goddess]

...then you wouldn't expect any Good person to want that to happen, and shouldn't need a separate camp of Neutrals to police the benevolent altruists to keep them from instigating universal Armageddon.

Often, even Good is blind to the results of it's actions.

[kamikasei]

Often, even Good is blind to the results of it's actions.

Often, everyone can be blind to the results of their actions. I don't see why Good, collectively, should be incapable of recognizing if its actions risk the destruction of everything, if this Neutral group can see it.

But in general, the "you must have a balance between Good and Evil" notion seems to me an abuse of the meanings of both those words - reducing morality down to a simple question of sides. The idea that the universe would be destroyed if people were a little nicer on average is one that I can't see as a natural story to be told, only a weird reaction to a buggy and artificial alignment system.

[Eldan]

I wouldn't say smite every commoner for every demon.

But Help the Underdog/Balance

Demons invade Material plane? Fight them off.
Good adventurers attack a evil goblin village? Fight them off.

That is of course the goal. HOwever, the way you wrote it up in the first post suggested something different in effect, namely that every smite had to be on a different alignment.

[2xMachina]

That is of course the goal. HOwever, the way you wrote it up in the first post suggested something different in effect, namely that every smite had to be on a different alignment.

Inspired by Shadow Sun Ninja.

[Faleldir]

Do they fall if they commit one good, evil, lawful or chaotic act?

[2xMachina]

^ Wouldn't that make them fall immediately?

[Tiki Snakes]

^ Wouldn't that make them fall immediately?

Hopefully. It would get it over with, if nothing else.

TN in the 'dedicated to balance' sense is the king of stupid alignments.

[2xMachina]

How else would Lord Ao have a Paladin? Else, he sponsors all 4 types?

[kamikasei]

How else would Lord Ao have a Paladin?

What does God need with a starship Ao need with a paladin?

[Kylarra]

AO doesn't even grant his clerics power.

[Telonius]

Do they fall if they commit one good, evil, lawful or chaotic act?

I'd say that's too extreme of a requirement - definitely too far on the Lawful side. They can commit those acts, as long as they don't make a habit of them.

[Kylarra]

I'd say that's too extreme of a requirement - definitely too far on the Lawful side. They can commit those acts, as long as they don't make a habit of them.

Well given the trend suggested by the proposed abilities, they can't do it twice in a row. So, if they pay for something, that's a lawful act, thus they have to steal their next thing else it'd be two lawful acts in a row, and thus no longer neutral!

[Serpentine]

I support the idea, but not the execution.

A Paladin of Balance might focus on small-scale balance (for every Evil action perform a Good one), but it's at least as likely to be a concern for large-scale balance (both Demons and Angels should keep their big sticky noses out of the Material Plane).
I do think they should have more flexibility when it comes to alignment. In the name of balance, a Paladin of Balance might have to "be" Good or Evil (or Chaotic, or Lawful) for an extended period of time - in the right/wrong region, possibly even for their entire careers.

[Mercenary Pen]

To be honest, my gut reaction is that the proposed Paladin of Balance doesn't have a code, he/she has a suicide note. In essence, you're making enemies of the most powerful forces of good, evil, law and chaos all at the same time, and you don't necessarily get to stay on the good side of anyone but the local dirt-farmers...

[Sliver]

Reminds me the Darth & Droids comic where they said that Balance is bad because you don't want evil to have the same power as good...

Anyway, this paladin is like that MtG card that is always changing sides, depending on HP amounts... Forgot it's name.

This idea gets no support from me.

True balance is doing everything, but only halfway through! Balance comes with halfhearted devotion to everything!

[Lev]

The path of literal neutrality is actually to not adventure at all, and because thats clearly not an option Neutral means something different.

It's not really whether the Paladin is neutral or not, its whether the God is, a Paladin is not chosen, a Paladin is made through divine will, and because of that the gods of neutrality must have a reason to channel themselves through humans.

There could be countless reasons, perhaps a neutral god is one who doesn't like to get involved with good or evil matters and isn't biased to it's followers nor is it especially loose with it's decisions either, but that doesn't mean it's a Taoist monk God sitting by a still celestial pond in the realm of beige and gray.

If it's churches were suddenly attacked by some jackass, then in many campaigns, yes the God would probably enlist humans to defend the churches.
Neutrality isn't a force of wavering or buckling, it's settling down with whatever is most comfortable in the universe and staying there.
Neutrality is water, a big ocean of impossible to move heavy wet stuff that's found it's place, it doesn't want to help you, it doesn't want to kill you, its just water, and a God with the mentality of just being itself, a force or an idea, would give powers to it's Paladins as water is powered by gravity and its own simple self.


Furthermore, a Paladin of Neutrality would most likely not "smite good" "smite evil" as those would indicate the god actually has a negative view on both, just alternating, which would assume the God was in fact not neutral but somewhere along the lines of chaotic evil and the fact the Paladin it's manipulating is TN is more of a joke for that Gods amusement.

No, a Paladin of Neutrality would just Smite, there would be no alignment requisite, the rest is the same. SIMPLE.