Paladins 4E - goodbye, knight in shining armour?

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Rawgrim, the Dragonlance setting has an answer of sorts to your question. There is no Paladin class there (not in 3E at least) but there are 3 classes (2 are prestige classes), the Knights of Solamnia, who fill in the role of Paladin. Then there's 3 corresponding classes, the Knights of Takhisis, who are an evil mirror image of the Knights of Solamnia. The Knights of Takhisis follow a strict code of honour and a "paladin code" of sorts, but their ultimate goal is to serve the Dark Queen. The system works pretty well, especially if you read Dragons of Summer Flame.

 

I have that setting-book actually. Its not too bad. And I like the idea of different type of knights in it. I also like the fact that you have to do stuff to become a knight. Not just snap your fingers and pick up the class as a prestigue class. You have to earn it.

 

Your thinking of a blackguard or maybe a fallen paladin.

 

Yes I know. But in 4ed, you can be an evil paladin. The lawfull good restriction is gone. So it doesn``t make sense that an evil paladin should be just as focused on protecting allies, as the good ones are.

 

The bad guys have squishies too. The Evil Wizard/Cleric/Necromancer still needs the best body guard he can get...

 

Why not, if they pay or you are ordered to do so... Remember the Thayan Knight PrC from 3.5? It was non-good, but focused around serving and protecting another.

 

Yup, but thats not what a blackguard is. A blackguards makes deals with demons and such. And evil gods.

 

Yes, why not? A blackguard is a great bodyguard/right hand of a traditional cleric/mage villain. If Cyric has a powerful and charismatic cleric, why not assign a dark knight to serve as his right hand?

 

Why would anything else than Good with a Lawful bent (admittedly, NG doesn't seem that odd) have paladins? Do evil causes have paladins? Do paladins champion chaos?

But you will keep your spells and abilities, which is kind of nonsense. It's player perspective usability and political correctness or whatever. Or at least a desire to please everybody in a way that blurs things so everyone can be happy calling himself what he wants.

And that's precisely what I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about the fact they removed the restriction. The focus you describe is technical. The motivation of each is different. Unless we're talking about a weird culture that does mean things to outsiders but has some feelings and some honour between insiders, then you could probably have a self-contradictory society in which evil people selflessly self some others. But this is not the good old knight.

The name "paladin" comes from paladins of Charlemagne. Inherently, it means companions of the king (roughly "of the palace"). However, those were supposed to be champions of honour and goodness. Law and order as well.

 

Gnarff suggested earlier that the 4e paladin was now a template for a more generic holy warrior. But, as chev points out here, a paladin is by definition a fighter for a good cause, or, as the Oxford english dictionary describes it:
2. a knight renowned for heroism and chivalry
(point 1. being about the knights of Charlemagne's court that chev already mentioned)

Which makes it kind of awkward to name a character that would've been a blackguard in an older edition (i.e. the epitome of evil) a paladin. Or at least linguistically confusing, if not outright incorrect. They should've just named it a holy warrior, and we wouldn't have been having this discussion now.

 

Post this on the forums at WoT, and you will get your post deleted. If you post something that sounds negative towards 4ed, your post gets deleted. No reason given either. Aparantly they only like brainwashed fanboys to post there.

 

That's not quite correct. The problem is that these "brainwashed fanboys" report the thread to hell, and the ORCs close it without reading. I don't blame them, they have too much to do to keep the boards working. And you have to agree: most "edition war" topics get out of hand quite fast.

 

3.5 expansion books (can't recall which ones offhand, it's not one of the ones I have) had rules for paladins of Chaotic Good deities, paladins of Slaughter (Chaotic Evil) and paladins of tyranny (Lawful Evil) with some alterations in abilities. But still, the idea of a holy warrior devoted to something other than Law and Goodness makes just as much sense as a cleric devoted to evil.

Maybe a cosmetic name change for the sake of etymology?

 

I don't have a problem with the idea of others of your faith having judgement over you-but you would think the source of a D&D cleric's power would be able to do something if that cleric violated the tenets.

I think the Holy Warriors were something that clerics were supposed to be. However, I think this makes some fairness as an evil knight could be chaotic, lawful, or neutral so long as he was evil while a good knight/paladin could only be lawful. The concerns relating to a Holy Liberator (chaotic good) are answered by this change.

However, there is NO excuse (IMO) for removing parts of an alignment system that was easy to understand and encompassed a decent range of actions. And to collapse chaotic good into good while chaotic evil is left alone is playing favorites with the alignment possibilities for little reason. Lawful evil was a perfectly understandable alignment if you are looking for what to label a tyrant's henchmen.