The Problem with Paladin Villains (spoilers for SoD/GDGU)

[hamishspence]

Using an situation deliberately as absurd as possible played for comedy as evidence that "the sort of fellow who goes around destroying worlds isn't actively evil," seems flawed to the point of disregarding to me. I think clicking that link probably still leaves me at a number of visits to tv tropes that would be countable on two hands almost certainly, and likely one hand.

The Order of the Stick themselves are one of the examples given, since they destroyed 2 gates, endangering the world.

[Jason]

You are fixated on whether the people in question are evil and not whether they do evil. By the rules, you cannot have evil paladins. We all know this. But you can have paladins that do evil without falling and still remain good. This does not retroactively make their actions non-evil, nor does it mean they should Fall for their ignorance. It means good people (paladins included) can do evil and still be good.

If there was no evil intent on the part of the paladin and he didnt know his actions would cause harm to someone else then I would say that his actions are causing harm, not doing evil. When it comes to alignment, intent matters.
Causing a great deal of harm unintentionally makes you a dangerous fool that should either be taught better or restrained if you can't learn better, but it doesn't make you a villain.

Also, the cosmos does not judge whether you are a villain or not. That is not a thing that exists. In-universe, people judge you a villain based on the evil you do, and out of universe, the author and the audience do the same.

In D&D the DM does have to judge whether a player has violated their alignment, and this holds especially true for paladins and clerics, who will loose class abilities for an alignment change. So in D&D yes, the "cosmos" does judge whether you are a villain or not.

Clerics and druids lack the "unwitting" part and also make use of the atonement spell, so we cannot say that part is meant for paladins.

If a good person sees that they have caused harm to others without realizing it earlier the atonement spell is an appropriate reaction, along with helping the harmed party to repair as much damage as they can. Failure to stop and atone once you are no longer ignorant of the harm you are causing is itself an evil act.

[pearl jam]

Every individual experiences the world through their own limited perspective.

Individuals often make flawed judgments of others based upon the limitations of their own perspective.

If a story is told from one individual's point of view it may be difficult to ascertain the degree to which various judgments a character makes are accurate or inaccurate.

If a story is told from a third person or multi person perspective it may be easier to see the degree to which various character's perceptions may be clouded by perspective and how that impacts their interactions and the story overall.

The main action of OOTS is from a third person perspective allowing us some ability to make judgments about how various character's views line up with reality as it's been presented. Some things happen but aren't shown, like whatever consequences there may have been for the Sapphire Guard raids on the goblin villages, and others are shown only through retellings which could allow for perceptions of those who've retold them to color the events being related making it more difficult to come to clear conclusions.

The examples you gave came with the premise that the parties were good and paladins who have not fallen come with that premise as well using third person perspective of the alignment grid.

To me, as I have said, good means not a villain and meaning parties viewing a good person as a villain are in the wrong in that regard.

However, it's also clear that my belief that the term villain necessarily implies evil is not in complete agreement.

As a side note, this is my 11th post, I believe, in a thread only 3 4 pages long. I suspect that's never happened before, possibly even in a thread that went the full 50, and I certainly didn't anticipate it happening when I made the first one. lol

The Order of the Stick themselves are one of the examples given, since they destroyed 2 gates, endangering the world.

I would note that they have not, yet at least, destroyed the world, nor are they plotting to do so. In fact it is their expressed intention to prevent that outcome.

[Lemarc]

In D&D the DM does have to judge whether a player has violated their alignment, and this holds especially true for paladins and clerics, who will loose class abilities for an alignment change. So in D&D yes, the "cosmos" does judge whether you are a villain or not.

Although I find discussions about the SG's actions interesting, it does ultimately come back to what Shadowknight has said - they're a "Lawful 'Good' martial class that is based around delivering violence unto 'Evil'" - and what the Giant has said about the rules of D&D being ancillary to the story. Paladins, by the rules, are paragons, but as characters in a story they resemble certain attitudes that most of us deplore so nasty paladins are narratively convenient. I realise that's a bit of an "out", but I think it's also a context worth recognising.

[Jason]

There's a very good reason why 4E and 5E both dropped the paladin code in favor of serving deities (in 4E) and having a variety of oaths (in 5E). Precisely because a minefield of a code of conduct that means a paladin can't do anything wrong ever while staying a paladin is harmful to roleplaying and storytelling on multiple levels.

Paladins are supposed to hold themselves to high standards. A good DM won't make it impossible to play one, unless he wanted an "all evil" campaign, in which case he should check if his players want that too first.

Personally I think making alignment as irrelevant as it is in 5th edition was a mistake. If I want to play an RPG without lawful/chaotic good/evil alignment there are plenty of choices. If I want to play D&D I generally want to play with alignment too.

[Keltest]

Paladins are supposed to hold themselves to high standards. A good DM won't make it impossible to play one, unless he wanted an "all evil" campaign, in which case he should check if his players want that too first.

Personally I think making alignment as irrelevant as it is in 5th edition was a mistake. If I want to play an RPG without lawful/chaotic good/evil alignment there are plenty of choices. If I want to play D&D I generally want to play with alignment too.

Separating alignment from the mechanical rules was probably a good idea. 5E paladins dont have a lot of trouble identifying what actions would break their oaths, and in practice its difficult or impossible to play, say, a Chaotic Evil paladin of Devotion (the classic 3.5 paladin equivalent) even though there are no specific rules forbidding it. Rather than arguing about whether an act is non-good, you can get straight to the meat of the problem. "Did you maximize the amount of good you did while trying to minimize the amount of harm?" or whatever the topic at hand is. Its a lot easier for everybody to be on the same page.

[Lemarc]

There's a very good reason why 4E and 5E both dropped the paladin code in favor of serving deities (in 4E) and having a variety of oaths (in 5E). Precisely because a minefield of a code of conduct that means a paladin can't do anything wrong ever while staying a paladin is harmful to roleplaying and storytelling on multiple levels.

If you don't want to follow a rigid code of conduct I'm not sure what the fun in playing a paladin is.

[Snails]

If you don't want to follow a rigid code of conduct I'm not sure what the fun in playing a paladin is.

Personally, I think that the Paladin is held to a higher standard is a fine idea, but in the actual context at the table how these Codes were written worked very poorly.

The rules very strongly implied that 1e/2e/3e clerics had codes of some kind, too, that depended on the god they served. But the rules never went there explicitly, presumably because the PHB was not going to list out 10-20 codes when the actual campaign world might have very different gods. The Paladin Code ended up being very jarring to DM and players alike, who did not have any useful context on how to work with these ideas, while even LG clerics of very moralistic gods were almost always skirting under the radar.

To be blunt, a 1e/2e/3e Cleric or Cleric/Fighter would be 120% as powerful as any Paladin while everyone at the table was suffering 10% of the RP hassle, and if you pick an LG god or similar you get to be the "knight in shining armor" by virtue of simple roleplaying. I suspect this soured many people on Codes entirely, and made applying such ideas to clerics even less popular.

5e has Codes, but they are "intermediate" level restrictions. This is superior because an understandable rule that everyone is willing to see enforced is always better than a confusing rule that almost no one wants to work with.

[Morty]

Paladins are supposed to hold themselves to high standards. A good DM won't make it impossible to play one, unless he wanted an "all evil" campaign, in which case he should check if his players want that too first.

Personally I think making alignment as irrelevant as it is in 5th edition was a mistake. If I want to play an RPG without lawful/chaotic good/evil alignment there are plenty of choices. If I want to play D&D I generally want to play with alignment too.

If you don't want to follow a rigid code of conduct I'm not sure what the fun in playing a paladin is.

I can play a character who is held to a strict code of behavior, either by themselves or an external force, using just about any class. Or, indeed, any system, including those that have no classes at all. What I don't need or want is the rules enforcing the code of conduct in such a way that my character will be immediately slapped with a "DENIED" sign whenever they violate it. All that does is get in the way of conflicts and stories resulting from my character (or any character) making mistakes, losing their way of being at odds with others belonging to the same creed. Because the question is always going to be "is it enough to make them fall", rather than something interesting, and getting bogged down in minutiae.

And at any rate, 5E paladins seem to be a very popular class despite having a variety of codes divorced from alignment, so obviously people want something from the class that doesn't need the code of conduct. 5E's mistake when it comes to alignment was not dropping it entirely - but making it easy to ignore is the next best thing.

[CountDVB]

A lot of this I think comes from the dogmatic adherence to tradition (especially with 3.5) and unwillingness to deviate from it or rethink it. Paladins are powerful classes and devotion to ideals or oaths makes perfect sense for them.

But, those differing ideals/higher callings can be all over the spectrum and not necessarily linked to a moral alignment. A Paladin who is devoted to the ideals of freedom would be perfect for a Chaotic good character.

They hold themselves to high standards and try their best to live them so punishing them for not being perfect when they tried to legitimate best and recognize their fault would be unfair. Turning their back and willingly defying a core pillar of their oaths is a big no-no.

Alignments shouldn’t have much effect on mechanics with classes, though they still play an important part since it does show the general nature and overall view of the character, even if the details and executions are different for everyone. Also helps reinforce the presence of a higher power, which I think terrifies a lot of people because it means being held accountable for actions and people tend to not like being judged.

[Lemarc]

To be blunt, a 1e/2e/3e Cleric or Cleric/Fighter would be 120% as powerful as any Paladin while everyone at the table was suffering 10% of the RP hassle

I'm not so sure. That protection from evil aura is pretty potent. They're flatly better than fighters and the casting time on cleric spells tends to be pretty harsh. I can't speak with any confidence about 3E though.

[arimareiji]

A lot of this I think comes from the dogmatic adherence to tradition (especially with 3.5) and unwillingness to deviate from it or rethink it. Paladins are powerful classes and devotion to ideals or oaths makes perfect sense for them.

But, those differing ideals/higher callings can be all over the spectrum and not necessarily linked to a moral alignment. A Paladin who is devoted to the ideals of freedom would be perfect for a Chaotic good character.

They hold themselves to high standards and try their best to live them so punishing them for not being perfect when they tried to legitimate best and recognize their fault would be unfair. Turning their back and willingly defying a core pillar of their oaths is a big no-no.

Alignments shouldn’t have much effect on mechanics with classes, though they still play an important part since it does show the general nature and overall view of the character, even if the details and executions are different for everyone. Also helps reinforce the presence of a higher power, which I think terrifies a lot of people because it means being held accountable for actions and people tend to not like being judged.

At least to me, the myths that grew up around Robin Hood are almost a perfect match to a CG paladin -- taking money from the wealthy and powerful who crush the poor underfoot, keeping only enough for their needs and the occasional feast, giving the rest to the poor. But afaik, he would just be an extremely idealistic ranger under 3.5.

As Morty and others have touched on, anyone can choose to follow a code. The question at hand may be, "Should 'following a code' be treated like a flaw that allows you to pick corresponding strengths to balance it out?" Or perhaps more aptly, "How many players and DMs can handle it without the slopover effects ruining the ability of others to be protagonists in their own story?"

[Keltest]

I'm not so sure. That protection from evil aura is pretty potent. They're flatly better than fighters and the casting time on cleric spells tends to be pretty harsh. I can't speak with any confidence about 3E though.

In the various flavors of 3e, paladins continue to be better than flat fighters, but suffer from the same problems that all martials do compared to casters.

[CountDVB]

At least to me, the myths that grew up around Robin Hood are almost a perfect match to a CG paladin -- taking money from the wealthy and powerful who crush the poor underfoot, keeping only enough for their needs and the occasional feast, giving the rest to the poor. But afaik, he would just be an extremely idealistic ranger under 3.5.

As Morty and others have touched on, anyone can choose to follow a code. The question at hand may be, "Should 'following a code' be treated like a flaw that allows you to pick corresponding strengths to balance it out?" Or perhaps more aptly, "How many players and DMs can handle it without the slopover effects ruining the ability of others to be protagonists in their own story?"

How is following a code a detriment exactly? It’s like complaining you can’t worship multiple gods as a Cleric???

Though if a large number of players or DM can’t handle it, that says a lot of not pleasant things about the community

[mjasghar]

The way I always read it and from many articles - LG and paladins are law tempered with Good ie mercy and extenuating circumstances. So LG will bend the law for mercy. Too often it written or played as LN and often as over zealous police.
A LG paladin will not go along with evil laws - it will not be seen as legitimate authority. In fact, protagonist paladins often act against authority when it goes bad cf Huma in Dragonlance or even Sturm.

[Lemarc]

In the various flavors of 3e, paladins continue to be better than flat fighters, but suffer from the same problems that all martials do compared to casters.

There's sort of the opposite problem in AD&D. Cleric spells tend to take half a round to a round to cast and if someone hits you before you get it off the whole thing is ruined so during combat I find as a cleric you're mostly a discount fighter (forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know). Paladins on the other hand are rocking around with everything fighters get and a lot of bonuses too. I'm actually a bit fond of AD&D paladins, because they seem to me like arguably the most powerful class at most levels, yet they pay for it with this onerous RP duty.

[arimareiji]

How is following a code a detriment exactly? It’s like complaining you can’t worship multiple gods as a Cleric???

Though if a large number of players or DM can’t handle it, that says a lot of not pleasant things about the community

Whatever you may say about me or anyone else, that's exactly how the 3.5 rules treat it: "If you don't follow this code to the letter regardless of whether your character believes it violates the spirit, your powers are revoked and your identity is officially denied." That's worse than a flaw, which people can find ways around. It denies the character's agency.

Edit: I'd like to further note that I never said following a code is a detriment, as you incorrectly attribute to me. I implied (but did not directly assert even this much) that treating it that way -- mandatory whether you believe in it or not -- turns it into a detriment.

[Keltest]

Whatever you may say about me or anyone else, that's exactly how the 3.5 rules treat it: "If you don't follow this code to the letter regardless of whether your character believes it violates the spirit, your powers are revoked and your identity is officially denied." That's worse than a flaw, which people can find ways around. It denies the character's agency.

Edit: I'd like to further note that I never said following a code is a detriment, as you incorrectly attribute to me. I said that treating it that way (mandatory whether you believe in it or not) turns it into a detriment.

No more than a cleric following their God's beliefs does, or a warlock being beholden to their patron.

[Shadowknight12]

No more than a cleric following their God's beliefs does, or a warlock being beholden to their patron.

There is actually a difference: For the most part, the wills and whims of deities and patrons are not written down anywhere for people to argue over. It is explicitly expected for the DM to interpret them and adjust them to their setting, which means you only violate them if the DM thinks you did.

[Keltest]

There is actually a difference: For the most part, the wills and whims of deities and patrons are not written down anywhere for people to argue over. It is explicitly expected for the DM to interpret them and adjust them to their setting, which means you only violate them if the DM thinks you did.

In practice, its the same with the paladin code, infamously so.

[Shadowknight12]

In practice, its the same with the paladin code, infamously so.

As you can attest from this very thread, while it may be how it plays out at every table, it is not how it is talked about outside of it.

[arimareiji]

There is actually a difference: For the most part, the wills and whims of deities and patrons are not written down anywhere for people to argue over. It is explicitly expected for the DM to interpret them and adjust them to their setting, which means you only violate them if the DM thinks you did.

Not to mention, sometimes dreadfully specific -- such as "can never run from a battle", which is not far afield of the wording of some flaws and can actually be contrary to the interests of Law and Good in some circumstances. The burdens imposed by vague generalities like "do good things" and "promote the interests of your deity" are nowhere near the same level.

[Keltest]

Not to mention, sometimes dreadfully specific -- such as "can never run from a battle", which is not far afield of the wording of some flaws and can actually be contrary to the interests of Law and Good in some circumstances. The burdens imposed by vague generalities like "do good things" and "promote the interests of your deity" are nowhere near the same level.

In 1e at least, the Deities and Demigods book had fairly specific behaviors and interests for most of the gods within. The gods have strong opinions about lots of things.

[arimareiji]

In 1e at least, the Deities and Demigods book had fairly specific behaviors and interests for most of the gods within. The gods have strong opinions about lots of things.

Indeed, but by the time of 3.5 it seemed like it had been diluted down to "don't use edged weapons" (with not even that being hard and fast in all cases".

[Keltest]

Indeed, but by the time of 3.5 it seemed like it had been diluted down to "don't use edged weapons" (with not even that being hard and fast in all cases".

Ehhhh... if your lawful evil cleric of kelemvor was going around raising and abandoning undead left and right, your cleric would soon find his spells not having any power.

[Snails]

I'm not so sure. That protection from evil aura is pretty potent. They're flatly better than fighters and the casting time on cleric spells tends to be pretty harsh. I can't speak with any confidence about 3E though.

In the various flavors of 3e, paladins continue to be better than flat fighters, but suffer from the same problems that all martials do compared to casters.

The killer is the MADness. On paper it may fool you with a few shiny bennies, but overall the paladin is only slightly better than the infamous monk.

In 1e/2e, you are giving up +3 AC or +3 HP/level to be a paladin because of the Cha 17 prereq. That is huge.

In 3e, your better special abilities are keyed off a stat. Some are Cha and some are Wis, and thus you are squeezed by a lack of dump stats. A 8th level paladin typically casts fewer spells than a 1st level cleric. Divine Grace and Lay on Hands only matter if you have a high Cha. Until you get the magic items to pump up your Charisma, the saving throws of a Clr/Ftr could easily be better overall.

[Jason]

In 1e/2e, you are giving up +3 AC or +3 HP/level to be a paladin because of the Cha 17 prereq. That is huge.

There weren't any point buy systems in 1st edition.

To become a paladin a character must be human, have a strength of not less than 12, a minimum intelligence of 9, a Wisdom of 13 or more, a minimum constitution of 9, and not less than 17 charisma.

You didn't "give up" any attribute scores to play a Paladin. You rolled lucky in the first place.

1st edition paladins were obviously more powerful than the other classes, at low levels at least. That's why they had the most stringent requirements for entry (except for the bard). They had restrictions on the number of magic items and the wealth they could retain too.

[arimareiji]

Ehhhh... if your lawful evil cleric of kelemvor was going around raising and abandoning undead left and right, your cleric would soon find his spells not having any power.

Fair enough, but between the restrictions of "Come back with your shield or on it" or "If you can't take proper care of your toys, you can't have them" I'll take the latter. (^_~)

[Some]

No, a paladin can be a villain while staying Lawful Good and never committing any Fall-worthy acts.

Feels like that's where realism and game-mechanics wildly diverge.

In a realistic setting, a god would tend to want to empower those that serve their cause. Truly exemplary paladins would get the most support, while less-exemplary paladins would get less support. Gods might stop supporting paladins who're still Lawful Good without any major mess-ups for merely failing to be truly exceptional examples of Lawful Good.

But in a game setting, the gods don't actually pick their paladins -- the players pick themselves.

Pretty hard to imagine a realistic paladin as a villain; much as the Azurites tried to distance themselves from Miko, literally, by sending her away on far-off missions, presumably the gods would've distanced her by simply not granting so much power. And presumably the gods would've taken the powers back when she yelled at her lord and brandished her weapon in a threatening manner, as that'd seem far more than sufficient for her to instantly lose her powers, rather than wait for her to continue misuse of them in dramatic fashion.

I guess I'm trying to say that some of this stuff is less enjoyable for me because it's too inconsistent. If you can suspend disbelief really hard, shutting down all logical objections, then I guess you can enjoy stories about incredible, unheard of things that wouldn't be able to exist if logic were present.

But my ideal stories are more consistent. I want an author to give me all of the facts -- honestly and truly, without lies or omissions or mischaracterizations -- and then, following strict logical consistency, show how the given premises combine in a wonderful way to produce something beautiful.

This is, let's talk about the idea that life emerged on Earth from primordial goo:

• A good story would set up the initial conditions and physics in great detail. And a target reader would, presumably, look at the premises without knowing where it'd go. Then the author, through strict consistency with the rules, would show that the given premises lead to abiogenesis: spontaneous emergence of life.
• A poorer story might give fewer details, leaving more vague or to be revealed later, or possibly with some faithless narration to throw a reader off. Then the author might, without particular regard for consistency, show how the events would lead to abiogenesis: the emergence of life.. if we kinda ignore the parts where it didn't make sense.

So if an author's going to write about a villainous paladin, presumably they'd write about a paladin who is, in the sight of the gods, a truly wonderful exemplar of what it means to be good and honorable. And yet, somehow -- without any plot holes where the gods are, inexplicably, blind to something obvious -- the paladin is also a character for a hero to rise against.

But if an author just wants to fake depth with shallow contrarianism -- writing a story about a villainous paladin who's somehow both a paladin and villain because [PLOT HOLE, don't think too hard about how there wasn't actually an explanation here!], then that lacks the beauty of a well-spun narrative; it wouldn't be an intellectual revelation nor a treatise on morality and ethics, but rather just.. someone slowly twisting stuff by fudging things. And that'd be disappointing.

[Shadowknight12]

In a realistic setting, a god would tend to want to empower those that serve their cause. Truly exemplary paladins would get the most support, while less-exemplary paladins would get less support. Gods might stop supporting paladins who're still Lawful Good without any major mess-ups for merely failing to be truly exceptional examples of Lawful Good.

Your entire thesis hinges on the idea that Good gods will prioritize Goodness in their followers above all else, even when it would be detrimental to their causes. This is not something that is true in every setting, nor of every Good god.

There are gods that violate their own tenets by having exceptions. Take a look at the anti-undead gods: Sehanine Moonbow is staunchly anti-undead, yet it is by her blessing that baelnorns (good-aligned liches) exist. The Raven Queen was also staunchly anti-undead in 4e (and may continue to be so now), but 4e gave us the playable Revenant race, undead brought back by the Raven Queen herself to carry out her bidding. Likewise, the god Kelemvor was given the Death domain in 5e despite being staunchly anti-undead (and while you can argue that this is simply the closest approximation to his domain with the domains 5e had at launch, that's still canonical, which means Kelemvor clerics have Animate Dead as granted by their god's domain).

Good-aligned gods don't need to prioritize, as you claim, the most exemplary of their followers above all others, if the less exemplary ones are the ones advancing their causes. Especially when the vast majority of Neutral and Evil gods hold themselves to no such standards, it would be actively counterproductive to favour followers who are simply "good" over those who are more useful.

And if we remember that you can *be* good but still do things that are not good, Good gods don't even have to pick if they don't want to. They can instead use propaganda and encourage naivete so that their good followers remain ignorant and misinformed, and can therefore be effective tools against the followers of other gods without becoming non-good.