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*sigh* I wanna like D&D, I kinda enjoyed what we did in the play test. Still, It's a game I seem to have trouble getting comfortable in anymore, regardless of edition. Probably still going to buy the new edition though, if only to own for the sake of D&D book.

 Manchu wrote:
Why so?

It's very hard for me to put my finger on just what exactly. More so than when I play other games I always feel a little bit like I'm being torn in two directions, like what I want to do with the mechanics is grinding against what I want to narratively (and both these things are important to me). This applies more so as a player than a GM, given the larger degree of control afforded by the latter position but I've felt it in both roles. That's only part of it though.

Another thing is while I really, really like some aspects your sort of "Standard" D&D setting, I'm annoyed by others. I like monsters and evil wizards. I like crazy looking monsters and flashy magic spells. I like dusty farming villages and ancient ruins. I'm sort of on board with the dwarves and the orcs, and the goblins and such I guess... whatever. Royalty bore me to pieces. Monsters that are like half animal + woman's torso make my eyes roll. I like adventures in the wild and exploring dungeons, but I've little interest in grubbing around for treasure & coin.I hate elves and dear god there is always someone who loves the damn things in every game. It seems like there is always 20 billion varities of them these days. Regular Elves, Half-Elves, Dark Elves, not-an-elf-but-looks-like one, elf elf elf elf elf. Oh god. Make it stop. Please make it stop.

Not that D&D is inherently bound to any standard setting like that and I've played it in different ways. However, it's the default and as such is what people tend to go for.

 pretre wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 pretre wrote:
4th took the idea of limited resources in 1st/2nd/3rd and turned it into the core play mechanic.

I can agree with that, but also cannot resist qualifying it a bit more -- WotC took a fairly incidental mechanic in TSR's editions, which had grown in importance throughout 3E, and made it the core play mechanic of 4E.

Your qualification is exactly right.
...Which is a lot different than 'Very much a game artifice that didn't make much sense in-setting, but would have been at home in a computer game. '
...Which was my whole dispute in the first place.

What makes sense "in-setting"? Is a rules set meant to be a simulation of what happens in universe, dictating actions in much the same way the laws of physics dictate what happens in the real world? Is a rules set meant to be framework with which to use somewhat fuzzy or abstracted tools to construct a narrative outline within the game on to which the in-setting meaning is projected by the GM & Players?

Not that these are the only two options mind you, I'm just not so sure what you're pulling out here is a valid criticism beyond a matter of personal taste in how you like to arrive at your "In setting" events.

To use an example: If we had "Power Rangers: The RPG", Would it be OK to simply have a caveat that says that the Megazord can only be summoned when facing a giant monster and that you can only use the sword to end a fight, with no further explanation beyond the restricting game mechanic? Would it be better to have a more involved process outlining the use and limitations of megazords and swords, with no mechanic strictly tying them to the size of monsters and lengths of fights in hopes of supporting the standard trope?

 pretre wrote:

What now?

In Power Rangers: The RPG what would be the appropriate way to handle the use of the Megazord and its cool finishing moves?

Why do you feel this appropriate?
What are some possible alternatives to handling it that way?
What mechanical challenges do the alternatives present, and how do they relate to making the mechanics feel like you're playing a power ranger?
What narrative challenges do the alternatives present, and how do they relate to telling a story consistent with the tropes and tone of power rangers?

The Power Rangers is a good example for examining the kind of broader issues here because of the strict formula the stories follow. How a game might represent those is a useful lens with which to examine the relationship between mechanics and narrative in RPGs generally.

 Manchu wrote:
I think that's a nice summary, Vaktathi.

Chongara, I also answered your questions for pretre on the last page. To summarize, the key is to ask what the point of the game is. When you do a licensed game, the point is to simulate the license in one way or another.

The general line of thinking still applies though. "What sort of stories is a D&D group trying to tell?", with of course the following examination of ways to tell that kind of story. Granted, it's a far more muddled issue since D&D is to be honest...a bit all over the place even within the context any one edition.

What I'm trying to get at here is that the "Powers" system and things broadly like it (specific failures of the 4e implementation such as getting bogged down in big numbers aside.
), aren't necessarily opposed to supporting a lot of those stories. That is, game artifacts such as arbitrary timing restrictions like "Once Per Fight (Encounter)" can allow the introduction of elements that while appropriate in-universe and thematically, might throw off the tone and/or be hard to implement if using mechanics meant to be to be a stricter analog of what was actually happening in-universe.


EDIT: Not that I'm particularly advocating for something like the "Powers" system as superior solution for anything in particular. I just took issue with the assertion that it is somehow more opposed to telling a cohesive "D&D" story than other approaches at modeling the actions of characters.

 Manchu wrote:
TBH, AD&D is a mess. It's a mish mash avalanche of more or less helpful tools and options, like a huge panel of hundreds of switches and buttons when all you really need most of the time is a joystick. With experience and fine-tuning to taste, AD&D is super playable. I think what WotC wants out of 5E is something like a coherent version of (3E-flavored) AD&D with Basic as its beating heart.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chongara wrote:
I just took issue with the assertion that it is somehow more opposed to telling a cohesive "D&D" story than other approaches at modeling the actions of characters.

Sure, I think we are on the same page there. To clarify, I don't mean to exclude D&D from the logic of license games. The interesting part is, D&D is both the license and the simulation. Now with 5E, perhaps more than ever, D&D is trying very hard to simulate D&D. This is what WotC wants so baldy: to recover the phenomenological truth of D&D.

Well, if that is in fact what they're trying to do this edition they're going to have to have a much more narrow and clear definition of what "D&D" is than they've ever had. Even if they succeed in that, I'd imagine they'd alienate much of their kitchen sink customer base in doing so.

 Manchu wrote:
Can you elaborate?

D&D particularly in the "3e" vein is a game that can be used for a gritty, dark game set in an analog of feudal japan where life is cheap and players are grizzled warriors scraping out an existence as bandits. With no tweaks or additional material, that same game can be used to run a campaign where god-like players jet about the world on their flying golden lions, to thwart the plans of a demon-lord that wants blow up the world. Everything in between this is fair game too.

Hell, if you don't mind re-skinning some monster and class names you can even do both with core only.


You pick any one thing in that spectrum even the various things hanging roughly around the "Powered-up middle earth" part of the spectrum, to "Be" D&D and you're alienating someone.


Contrast this with something like the WOD games.As much as I hate them, they've got a relatively cohesive idea of what they are. In vampire you're a vampire, a vampire inherently integrated into this large secret political society. I think it's lame and boring, and boring and lame but it's cohesive. It's meant to do something specific, and is built to do that.

 Manchu wrote:
The idea that a rule set can simulate anything is exactly as true of any edition of D&D as it is of chess.

A lot of heartache over/criticism about D&D comes from the faulty assumption that it is or should be all things to all people.

In truth, D&D has a delimited scope. It is a game about people who don't fit into the normal pattern of fantasy world day-to-day life. Instead of farming or joining the watch, they creep into dangerous underground nests of terrible monsters to look for treasure. Eventually, they become embroiled with politics and perhaps even cosmological crises but usually in such a way so that their same, albeit developed skill sets still apply.

Well you show me how to get a story about creating a unique species and culture of dragon-bear warriors out of game of chess using only the rules exactly as presented and I'll, we'll I dunno. I'll say a silly word of your choosing.

Faulty or not, people have arrived at this assumption because D&D hands out the tools to do so much. It's so open to interpretation because the mechanics are so incredibly broad and kind of fiddly.

 kronk wrote:

 Triton wrote:

...but the return of the linear fighter/quadratic wizard dynamic is going to take me a long time to get over.

Could you explain these two? Are you talking about how a fighter grows in power level versus a wizard or something?

(as of 3.5)...

A 1st level fighter can Waggle a length of sharpened metal at a dude next to him.
A 1st Level Wizard knock enemies to the ground, blind them, shrink/grow himself and others, just to start.

A 3rd level fighter can Waggle a length of sharpened metal at a dude.
A 3rd level wizard can summon otherwordly creatures, open interdimensonal safe zones, transform into other people & races, and blind large groups of foes at a great distance.

A 5th level fighter can Waggle a length of sharpened metal at a dude next to him.
A 5th level wizard can summon clouds of nauesting gas that completely incapacitate foes in a large area, can fly, can speed or slown down the passage of time for others, can undo the magic of others, and can render a person entirely defenseless with gesture at 50 yards.

A 7th level fighter level fighter can Waggle a length of sharpened metal at a dude next to him, twice! (but the second time is really inaccurate)
A 7th level wizard can trap all but the strongest enemies in a bank of impassable magic fog, can instantly kill a foe with a nightmare, can turn themselves or others into powerful monsters, can sap the life energy of another with touch, become totally invisible and still fight, lay curses, see across miles and teleport.

and so on...... until

A 17th level fighter can waggle a stick or whatever, he's pretty good at it I guess. Maybe some other stuff due to magic items some wizard made while bored over a weekend.
A 17th level wizard can turn the fighter into a toblerone and eat him. If he feels like stopping time, summoning the entire great hosts of all of both heaven & hell to his side, might be a bit to draining for him to keep creating his own personal universe that day.


EDIT: Or to put a bit more dry mechanical terms:


Mechanics the fighter has: Roll to hit vs AC to cause hit point damage. (also like grappling I guess, and other gak that doesn't work on dragons and the like).

Mechanics the Wizard has: All of them.

 Manchu wrote:
But why the presumption that classes should be balanced to begin with? This is quite a modern development and I think it has to do with the idea that every character has a right to 20+ levels.

Because while this makes for a good comedy sketch:



It doesn't make for very good gameplay dynamics.

 Manchu wrote:
But that isn't what happened with earlier editions. Seriously, go play some Basic. There is no (recognizable) attempt to balance anything against anything. Works fine.

Truth is, balance is only an issue because of a certain mentality about stats on a character sheet.

You've just described older versions as being balanced (you don't get BMX Bandit & Angel Summoner), as a counter argument to the idea that things should be balanced.

Now just because there was no "recognizable attempt" to create it, and they reached that balance by some mix of luck, intuition, and/or general mechanics restrictions doesn't mean that making balance a design goal is a bad idea.

 Manchu wrote:
No, I am not describing older versions as being balanced. I am saying balance was not a goal of older versions. And yes I have thought about this quite a lot, understand the difference between the two concepts, and mean exactly what I am saying. Balance was not an issue in older editions because characters were not defined by the four corners of a character sheet as per newer editions.

You seem to be trying to make a fuzzy distinction at best.

Was BMX Bandit & Angel Summoner a "Thing that could happen as defined by the rules" or not?

If the answer to the question is yes, then things were not balanced.
If the answer to the question is no, then things were (at least), relatively speaking balanced.

If your argument is that characters did things that weren't on the character sheet, weren't defined within the games written mechanics then that has nothing to do with any property of those rule sets. That's a playstyle choice of using freeform RP elements. It's like judging two versions of shooting rules in RPG because when using one set you sometimes decided that if you used two Gatling guns at once, that's an instant kill on godzilla. Cool perhaps but not a part of the system.

 Manchu wrote:
In all sincerity, I understand the difficulty of imagining a game not intended to be played "by its rules." This is because it was so difficuly for me when I first started to think about Basic and similar games. The best way I have been able to explain it is by suggesting a distinction in perspective:

(a) determinative -- this is what we are used to; follow the rules to play the game

(b) interpretive -- this is what we are no longer used to; the key here is a game is played with rulings rather than rules

Balance is not, honestly cannot be, a goal of the interpretive perspective simply because there is no quantifiable "power" in the mechanics to balance. Unlike in a game conceived of from the determinative perspective, where "power" in the game is a creature of the mechanics, any "power" in an interpretive game comes exclusively from beyond the mechanics. And the mechanics themselves are just suggestions that (and this is crucial) require further interpretation by the players.

It's fine to play loose more and freeform, with whatever system you're using.

If something boils down to "Freeform with some guidence" that's plenty of fun too and is basically how this post is reading to me. I'm just not sure it's particularly meaningful to chalk up the results of the Freeform part of the equation up too much to the parts that are offering the guidance. The merits of what you can do in the absence of tight rules definitions aren't a virtue of what rules do exist in that lighter framework.

I've very played engaging games where each player has little more than a broad character concept a single d10 and the GMs whims to determine what happens. I'm not sure there is much value in trying to assign too much of what happened in that play experience to the d10.


EDIT: In contrast, there is probably a fair amount of value in looking at how much of a particularly good or bad play experience is derived from the rules when using a stricter and more granularly defined ruleset.

 Manchu wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I also think more options doesn't negate the way you want to play

To be clear, I like all editions of D&D. I have been reading a lot of 4E lately and conniving schemes to get my group to play at least one session. I don't want one or the other when it comes to D&D; give me all of them!

 Chongara wrote:
The merits of what you can do in the absence of tight rules definitions aren't a virtue of what rules do exist in that lighter framework.

This is exactly the same argument I once made on the topic. I also asked, how can you praise absence? How can you say the rules that aren't there are so good? Trouble is, these questions are posed from the rules-inured deterministic mindset. Basic is not a great game because of all the rules it doesn't have; it's a great game because it is designed to be ruled on by the players.

To me, your statement is reading basically as "I enjoyed the greater freedom more easily afforded by rules light systems". Would you characterize this interpretation as correct? It feels like you're inventing a lot of terminology here to describe simple differences in game types.

 Alpharius wrote:
Level 2 characters can take on a dragon (not a baby or an extremely young one, I'm guessing?) in 3.0+ and not only live, but take it down?!?

Depends how interested the dragon is in them. In addition to being giant killer lizard monsters non-juveni, 3.5-era adult sized++ dragons are powerful arcane spell casters. The only way you're going to survive is by being beneath the critters notice. Which to be fair you're probably still going to be, even in the case you go running at it with your 2nd level asses screaming, sword raised.

 Alpharius wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Level 2 characters can take on a dragon (not a baby or an extremely young one, I'm guessing?) in 3.0+ and not only live, but take it down?!?

No.

But some players think that a DM wouldn't put a monster in front of them unless they could beat it.

Ah, I gotcha now!

Yeah, that mindset seems to have disappeared somewhere between 2E and 3E - that some encounters are best avoided!

There aren't a lot of 'save or die' rolls anymore either, are there?

3.5 is filled to the brim with these. Hell, a lot of stuff basically qualifies as "No save, just die - or lose, at any rate".

Save or Die gets a bad rap. It originated as an act of mercy: something has happened to you so heinous that you would just die BUT you get a chance not to. People stuck in the "modern perspective" can only imagine Save Or Die is a way DM's "cheat," some extension of DM "fiat," another bogeyman of earlier editions.

Having spent a lot, and I mean a lot of time in discussion groups around the 3.5/Pathfinder-ish style D&D I've literally never heard Save-or-Dies described in this terms. Like out of the 100s of hours I've spent talking about the game, and probably at least a few dozen talking about save-or-dies specifically this is the first time I've ever seen them described as even anything even vaguely like a "DM Cheat".


EDIT: "DM Cheat" is also kind of a silly term. I mean I've heard that kind of terminology kind of haphazardly thrown around by people who don't like house rules and the sort, but never against basic underlying mechanics.

EDIT: (Again) It's also odd to see a response to "GM Fiat" being framed as a "boogeyman" rather than a a basic tool. I've never really run into any but a handful of the most extreme bearded-of-necks approach it like that.

 Balance wrote:
I feel there is a serious difference between "going into the dangerous places' and 'jumping into lava.' The former is the kind fo thing adventurer-types do, while the latter is the kind of thing suicidal people do.

Admittedly, these two categories can and do overlap.

I feel that a certain amount of warnings and gentle pushes to players does make sense. Players are making decisions based off imperfect interpretation and shouldn't be punished for misinterpreting a misspoken phrase from the GM.

Also, it encourages going along with the plot without out-and-out railroading. If I know that the GM won't punish me for going the wrong way, I know it's fine to explore in the direction that it was indicated that the Golden Idol of Plot Importance is rumored to be in, even if that's Giant Country.

Not providing some nudges, to me, encourages PCs to take the safe options, like staying home and avoiding high-risk jobs like adventuring.

That's a major feature of tabletop RPGs to me: a great GM can make the party feel like they're on the edge of dying and then let them escape to recover. I haven't seen a computerized RPG that can really do this yet, despite recent advancements.

This is fairly close to a lot of my feelings. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen PCs do outright suicidal things, despite the GM providing proper telegraphing opportunities.In my experience if a PCs walk into 95%+ failure chance situation it's usually due to a failure on the GMs part.

Even then, most interesting and engaging outcomes of these events when they do happen have been the ones where the GM uses it as an opportunity to cause a plot twist or complication with a bit more meat on its bones than a straight up character death.

 Alpharius wrote:
"Railroady" seems to be another (perhaps unfortunate) descriptor for many modern "RPGs"...

There is a huge gap between railroading and acting as a curator of the narrative, rather than as a simple combination random number generator/rules arbitrator.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
@Ahtman: No more BBQs for you until you back up this regression claim.

You could start by comparing the number of pages devoted to combat maneuvers for martial characters to the number of pages to spells. To beat it the spells would need to take up just 1 page, but it has far more than that. Sure there are class features, but wizards and clerics also get class features. Much of the Book of Nine Sword and 4E martial options seemed to have just up and disappeared.

Page numbers? Those are rules in a book. The game in the book is not about rules in the book, it's about the rulings on the table about the rules in the book. You are therefore ruling an issue about rules in a book when it should be a ruling about rulings about rules in a book, can you please re-frame your ruling to be a ruling about rulings about rules in a book without being about rules in a book rather than a rulings about rules in a book.


EDIT: That's my ruling about your ruling at least. It isn't a rule in a book, that isn't what this is about. Feel free to have your own ruling of my ruling of your ruling of his ruling of their ruling of rules. I'm sure we're really all on the same page here.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
4th was highly limiting and stiffling. "Here's what you can do, like action tabs on an MMO."
Unlike in wargames, in RPG's I don't care about balance. A good DM can and should do whatever it takes to make the game fun, like an interactive story. (for me) The more restrictive those rules, the less I can get into the game.

See, I don't get why you are playing D&D then. I don't mean that as a joke, I mean, there are game systems that are tailored to that idea.

Maybe because he wants to run around with elves n' dwarves and whatever and not modern-era Special SuperSecretMonsters : My character is 12deep14you - The sexying expansion.

Finally got around to looking through the basic rules with at a bit more than a casual glance. I like what I see mostly. There is a clean efficiency to what they've presented here. It feels like a trimmed and toned successor to 3.X. I can certainly see where 4th-edition fans would be turned off as there scarcely even a nod to it's existence in the product.

I'll reserve final judgement for the players guide to see how I think it holds up under the weight of additional options. I share some of the sentiments I've seen fearing this is going to continue to be lopsided for casters. They've left some things open enough I think some good DMing could work around most problems in that vein, but the inclusion of things like Knock and Find the Path is worrying.

I'd certainly like to give the ruleset a test session or two if my group gives me a chance. The beta play test (in a much earlier iteration than this), left a sour taste in some of their mouths however. It may be a tough sell even with this being a very different game than that was.

 Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Finally got around to looking through the basic rules with at a bit more than a casual glance. I like what I see mostly. There is a clean efficiency to what they've presented here. It feels like a trimmed and toned successor to 3.X. I can certainly see where 4th-edition fans would be turned off as there scarcely even a nod to it's existence in the product.

I'll reserve final judgement for the players guide to see how I think it holds up under the weight of additional options. I share some of the sentiments I've seen fearing this is going to continue to be lopsided for casters. They've left some things open enough I think some good DMing could work around most problems in that vein, but the inclusion of things like Knock and Find the Path is worrying.

I'd certainly like to give the ruleset a test session or two if my group gives me a chance. The beta play test (in a much earlier iteration than this), left a sour taste in some of their mouths however. It may be a tough sell even with this being a very different game than that was.

Magic's probably not going to quite break in core, but once the splats start bulging their way out of someone's tumescent wand, I think it's probably pretty likely that they'll explode back up to deific power again. Maybe not quite as hard as 3.5, so it might, for example, be limiting them to teleporting only one god per round into the nearest star.

Then again, maybe they'll maintain some semblance of balance.

Core is broke what 3.X, mostly at least. All the most egregious differences in power-level were in core, with splat offenders mostly being limited to relatively narrow gimmicks (Uber Charger), outright editing mistakes (Shivering Touch) , non-functional systems (Truenamer), or broad applications of narrowly intended designs (Nightsticks). If it's going to break anywhere it's going to break in core. Typically it seems as a system matures the creators getting a much better sense of how it works "In the wild", later content taking this into account and being more tuned to real play experiences.

I've never TPK'd. I'm in the camp that would aim to avoid character death in general, before aiming to create it.

I figure the actual danger level only needs to be high enough to create a sufficient feeling of risk to ensure the PCs pay respect to the tone of the game/setting. Of course depending on the tone, setting and the personalities of your players what that entails exactly can be pretty variable.

Oh god. I can just hear the heavy mouth-breathing as some overly excited neckbeard insists yeah he's totally a good guy for torturing petty thieves to death because "Oath of Vengeance". What a bother.

What's the problem with Oath of Vengeance? It isn't the only Paladin oath, it's just the one I happened to cut and paste.

People justifying ends by any means are a well established part of both real life and fantasy worlds. Why wouldn't they have a paladin like this?

Have you seriously been lucky enough to avoid the vast swath of RPG players who seem to want any excuse to break an NPCs fingers, set sapient beings on fire, and pull a lot of gak that just sometimes crosses the line into sexual assault?

I swear there is this whole class of people who think Jack Bauer or your average Liam Neeson character are the height of ethics. Certainly these characters exist but they're not heroes and they're not paragons of anything save perhaps expedience, which hardly counts a virtue by any measure.

I get what WotC seems to be going for here. A crusading sort of paladin who goes out and slays dragons, or topples tyrants stopping along the way to help those affected by their actions.

What a lot of "That Guys" are going to do with it is use it as an excuse to cut off the hands of mooks that have surrendered, or play inquisitioner with anyone they assume has some small chance of having information.

 pretre wrote:

So you play with a lot of creepy douches? Yeah, I don't play with those kind of folks.

Then you're lucky. Sometimes they're your only option. Sometimes they don't telegraph themselves until 12 sessions in when they finally get the opportunity to "Shine". Sometimes they're otherwise tolerable players who just get hung up doing this one goddamn awful thing whenever it comes up. Sometimes it's a combination. They can sneak in other ways too.

I'm glad I'm (mostly), free of them in my current playgroup but they are problem. Oath Vengeance is worded in such a way as to give those types maximum leeway for disruptive behavior - particularly with inexperienced or unassertive GMs.

 Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

What's the problem with Oath of Vengeance? It isn't the only Paladin oath, it's just the one I happened to cut and paste.

People justifying ends by any means are a well established part of both real life and fantasy worlds. Why wouldn't they have a paladin like this?

Have you seriously been lucky enough to avoid the vast swath of RPG players who seem to want any excuse to break an NPCs fingers, set sapient beings on fire, and pull a lot of gak that just sometimes crosses the line into sexual assault?

I swear there is this whole class of people who think Jack Bauer or your average Liam Neeson character are the height of ethics. Certainly these characters exist but they're not heroes and they're not paragons of anything save perhaps expedience, which hardly counts a virtue by any measure.

I get what WotC seems to be going for here. A crusading sort of paladin who goes out and slays dragons, or topples tyrants stopping along the way to help those affected by their actions.

What a lot of "That Guys" are going to do with it is use it as an excuse to cut off the hands of mooks that have surrendered, or play inquisitioner with anyone they assume has some small chance of having information.

No, I think they're pretty clearly going for Black Templars, or Judge Dredd with that particular path. They don't have to be a paragon of chivalry, they certainly don't have to be Lawful Good, and a DM's not going to be able to give them an Orc Baby Dilemma to make them fall. They absolutely are the ends justify the means sorts - they're happy to give up their "righteousness" if it brings about the end of a greater evil.

I'd be a fan if they weren't pretty clearly just recycled 4E Avengers, likely to have some Oath of Enmity mechanic.

<gravely voice>I am vengeance. To fight evil. I must become evil. Which is good for the greater good because I am evil but not as evil as them. Vengeance!</gravely voice> ? Jeez louise, this exactly what I'm talking about here. We've actually got someone endorsing baby-killing as being a-ok it's an Oath Vengeance.

 Melissia wrote:
I can see the paladin as a non-religious moral knight, but I'm wondering where they get their divine powers from if not from a deity?

There are any number of ways you could fluff it depending on what tone you want your campaign/setting campaign to have.

The moral energy of the world could be something that is in a sense tangible something you interact and manipulate with the proper tools. Things that drop from a great height are accelerated by gravity, a spring can be compressed to hold force, fuel and oxygen combust to generate heat, a strong will, good heart and disciplined mind can channel the positive energy of the world to heal innocent or harm the wicked.


Alternatively, perhaps the energy comes strictly from within. Maybe the soul is a tangible source of power, something you can tap and shape. With training and conviction one can project one's inner energy to whatever effect that soul desires. The way the power manifests for the paladin is a reflective of their particularly righteous (or evil, in the case of anti-paladin) soul.


Maybe the the energy is just an offshoot of what might be traditionally seen as "Arcane" magic, force of will changing the world to effect. Maybe paladins derive their power from ancient relics ritually implanted during their initiation rites. Perhaps it is the will of humanity that fuels them, the hopes and fears of good people reaching out to empower them to better the world. It could be the paladins of the past reaching in from some other realm, connected to this one by the strength of the conviction they had in life being matched by the the current paladins.

There really are a ton of ways you could explain what powers the abilities we see in the paladin class. "Ethos-powered warrior" has a lot of design space. You could also just have the gods hand them their power, or a rabbit wearing a silly hat. Whatever works for your game.

 Alpharius wrote:
I still think the Intent is that they must be paying fealty to some Deity - all indications seem to point in that direction.

I don't think Lawful Good in of itself grants them...anything?

But, like Ahtman, that's the way its always been in my campaigns.

I agree it's clearly the intended default. I certainly usually run things that way. Still, paladins as typically presented can certainly fit into any number of metaphysical frameworks without much if any modification, if that's the sort of thing you're inclined to do.