Custom Paladin variant *Need Help With Design*

[Shino]

I'd like to make a Paladin variant that follows a custom deity book "bible" to the tee. This deity is also custom and touches 4 subjects: Empathy, Courage, Protection and Equality. This Paladin would not necessarily sense evil but only react to situations that conflict the proverbs this book provides (I'm not sure what alignment this deity would fall under). I'm just not sure what I can do to this class to make it balanced, but it is definitely a comical class to play. Any opinions or advice?

Thanks in advance!

[gooddragon1]

I'd like to make a Paladin variant that follows a custom deity book "bible" to the tee. This deity is also custom and touches 4 subjects: Empathy, Courage, Protection and Equality. This Paladin would not necessarily sense evil but only react to situations that conflict the proverbs this book provides (I'm not sure what alignment this deity would fall under). I'm just not sure what I can do to this class to make it balanced, but it is definitely a comical class to play. Any opinions or advice?

Thanks in advance!

Firstly, you have to say which edition of D&D this is for. Balance will depend on that. Detecting imbalances in those 4 subjects could be strange.

[Shino]

Oh! Sorry gooddragon1 I'm using D&D 3.5e, I added 3.5 in the tags but forgot to include it in my text. My mistake. I'm also rather new to the game and new to DMing altogether, so I'll take all the help I can get. ;) What do you think?

[Freezy]

As unhelpful as it sounds, stick to vanilla if you are just starting out.
Unless you have a firm grasp on game-play/mechanics balance, messing with a system could send it out of whack.

Perhaps the detect evil for this paladin, does not detect evil as so much as how much/often the detected has purport-rated offenses.
It would function more along the lines of a detect blasphemy.

That being said, role-playing is more then just the system.
You could even start out with throw away characters, make sure you let the people at your table know that it is for experimentation and building up your own worlds.
What kind of people live there, lets have a look. We enter an inn, the six of you are having a bar brawl after one of you felt insulted.
Or how about the group meets up in a jail, let them flesh out some stories of what they did to end up there, great exercise and these could be famous figures or recurring villains later on.

Books are rules, not being fluid the paladin would be lawful.
If the book is the will of the god and it's intention is for followers to live up to it to the letter, that would be lawful too.

in D&D, Law is order.
Chaos is doing what you think or feel is the best action.
Evil is self-serving, baby-eating, find joy in the suffering of others.
Good is caring for others, protecting and such.

The rules do not specify if setting out to get revenge is enough to make you evil, only the DM decides that.
With that power in your pocket, you can alter detect evil (and later on smite) to align with the good book.

[Shino]

"As unhelpful as it sounds, stick to vanilla if you are just starting out."

"Perhaps the detect evil for this paladin, does not detect evil as so much as how much/often the detected has purport-rated offenses.
It would function more along the lines of a detect blasphemy."

"Or how about the group meets up in a jail, let them flesh out some stories."

Well.. We were kinda running low on time when we made the Paladin (already) so I told said person controlling him that we will be monitoring him on the go. Currently we are already trying out Smite Blasphemous in replacement for Smite Evil (beat ya to it ;p), but I'm not sure Detect Blasphemy will become all that useful in this campaign (although sins for this book are currently a tiny bit on the contradictory side and may be uncommon in a world not super overpopulated, but they do happen).

Maybe there could be an alternative to a Detect Skill entirely. Does that help? :)