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Hey all,

So, it looks like my wife managed to get us a new gaming group together, and as usual, it has fallen to me to be the Tank of the group. Now, I already have a character built, but I always try to think ahead, and I'd like to build another character to save for "just in case"


Basically, I want to make a Paladin who is about the polar opposite of Lawful Nice. Obviously, to be a true paladin he has to be LG, but I'm curious to what deities I'd need to go with to have a good Paladin who's A-OK with torture, executions and generally taking an extreme stance on the eradication of evil.

<Disclaimer: I’ve been playing pathfinder lately, and no D&D past 3.5, so mechanics may have changed>

You need to be LG. Full Stop. That means while your church may condone some things, you shouldn’t. Step too far off the path of good, and you will soon be an ex paladin.

That said...

IIRC you can worship gods one step removed from your alignment and still be a cleric, so the same should hold true for paladins. So run with a lawful neutral deity. IIRC from the greyhawk pantheon there were some like St. Cuthbert and Wee Jas who might be what you are looking for. Now that I think about it, there was a minor one, Pholtus? who I recall being very questionable.

Another thing to consider is how you are going to work with the rest of the party. Paladins often get a bad rep due to sticks up the <beeps>, and cause a lot strife in the party. Don’t be that guy.

Best of luck!

Yeah, this is a 4th ed. campaign (most likely) and so far as I've found, the LG requirment has been removed.... Looking at the background for different deities, I have (at least temporarily) chosen the Raven Queen, with a Background Trait of being an Executioner

Torture & Executions are inherently evil you can't have anyone who is LG and does those things, regardless of who your deity is.

That's like saying "I'd like to be a chef, but don't want do any cooking. What restaurant would be OK with me never making food and just taking giant dumps on all the plates?"

That said since you're doing 4E and Paladin is just "Champion of a Cause/God" in that edition I'd say any LE/NE deity would do, based on what lines up with the character's other goals. Possibly CE if you're taking "The Punisher" route.

4e and 5e dropped the idea that the Paladin must be a LG paragon. It was always kind of a rough idea, and probably worked best in 1e/2e where it was essentially the 'you win' prize that was a class choice that took a character that rolled great stats and gave it some nifty unique abilities in return for adhering to an often not-fun moral code.

As with most things, talk to your DM. As long as you're true to the setting, it should be workable.

The Raven Queen is kind of a 'good' death god. I think there's some stuff about more death in the right time and such, but 4e lore is not my strongest suite.

Also, look at the Avenger paladin oath. That seems to fit in with what you want in terms of playstyle and personality.

At level 3, new edition paladins choose one of three oaths, a normal "light knight" oath, a "fey knight" oath (which is what I'm playing know) and the avenger oath, which is the more grim, hardcore aggressive hunter of evil.

I believe the class you're looking for specifically is called 'Murder Hobo'. They come in a variety of flavors from ranged, melee, and magic combat and all justify acting like a tool to get all the shinies and xp you want.

In all seriousness I'd reccomend more playing him up as an Inquisitor and less as a palladin. Also I highly reccomend the upgrade to 5th, its a lot more flavorful than 4ths deckbuilding. Also includes a 'hot topic' path for pallys.

lonestarr777 wrote:
I believe the class you're looking for specifically is called 'Murder Hobo'. They come in a variety of flavors from ranged, melee, and magic combat and all justify acting like a tool to get all the shinies and xp you want.

In all seriousness I'd reccomend more playing him up as an Inquisitor and less as a palladin. Also I highly reccomend the upgrade to 5th, its a lot more flavorful than 4ths deckbuilding. Also includes a 'hot topic' path for pallys.

I'd be inclined to disagree. I think 5e has a lot to offer the 3.P audience looking for a more streamlined & consistent experience. If you like what 4e is, 5e is something totally different and isn't going to capture any of what you like.

A Paladin is a holy warrior. If you don't want to RP the holy part, consider playing a Fighter instead. And if you just want to play a ruthless agent of some grim deity, try Cleric. Most classes have lots of room for you to find a character niche. Paladin, by contrast, is a niche right out of the box. There have been attempts to widen the concept over the years but IMO they all fail precisely because the Paladin's appeal is really its RP restrictions. I once played a Paladin in a retroclone that only used the Ethical Alignment Axis. That PC tortured info out of heretics. It just wasn't the same.

The classic Paladin takes the ethical concept of "lawful goodness" and adds a pretty hardcore normative value of "good" to it. Meaning, it says that while there are nine alignments possible, Lawful good is really the best one from a moral and even theological point. Of course... if I were to create a society, I'd want as many lawful good people as possible in it.

but yes, the Paladin is not just a holy warrior, he is a virtuous holy warrior. He's a boy scout, a captain America, a Superman. There is plenty of room for "ends justify the means" hard boiled heroes, but they probably won't be true Paladins.

The best you could get, based on your criteria, I think would be some sort of fighter/cleric dedicated to a Chaotic Good deity, one that emphasizes "goodness" above all else. then play the character as Chaotic Neutral. Not in the goofy sense, but in the idea that literally the only thing that mattrs is the extermination of "evil." Laws, rules, morals, innocent bystanders... none of that matter. Of course, that's a borderline psychotic view.

I think you stumbled into one of the problems facing the Paladin class: there is no difference between a Holy Warrior and a, er, virtuous Holy Warrior. Wherefore this need to tack on "virtuous" to the phrase Holy Warrior? I suspect it has to do with the grim'n'gritty anti-heroes nerd culture has eagerly lapped up since the late Eighties. The Paladin, meanwhile, hails from a time when being Good did not mean acting Bad.

 Manchu wrote:
I think you stumbled into one of the problems facing the Paladin class: there is no difference between a Holy Warrior and a, er, virtuous Holy Warrior. Wherefore this need to tack on "virtuous" to the phrase Holy Warrior? I suspect it has to do with the grim'n'gritty anti-heroes nerd culture has eagerly lapped up since the late Eighties. The Paladin, meanwhile, hails from a time when being Good did not mean acting Bad.

Well, D&D Paladins were cribbed fairly wholesale from Arthurian legend. They're not "holy" in that they are blessed by a god, they're holy and virtuous because they are blessed by the god that's the closest analogue to the Abrahamic god.

In a polytheistic environment, every god's blessings would, in theory, make it holy, whether the god be the ruling god, the death god, or the god of thieves. Meaning, would a cleric of an agricultural deity be holy? What about of a plague god? Much of the wording we use to describe theology is based on a monotheistic view, or at the most a polytheistic world in which all gods are either "good" or removed from the concept of morality. Sure, western polytheistic traditions had divine beings that were not good, but did they have priests and followers?

I have zero problems with other alignments or gods having holy warriors, but the Paladin concept is pretty rooted in a lawful/good, not "Yahweh we swear" religious concept.

 Manchu wrote:
I think you stumbled into one of the problems facing the Paladin class: there is no difference between a Holy Warrior and a, er, virtuous Holy Warrior. Wherefore this need to tack on "virtuous" to the phrase Holy Warrior? I suspect it has to do with the grim'n'gritty anti-heroes nerd culture has eagerly lapped up since the late Eighties. The Paladin, meanwhile, hails from a time when being Good did not mean acting Bad.

Well if in a D&D context we strip away the name "Paladin" and look at it from an abilities standpoint it's at least in 3.P/5e been something of a template for a particular archetype. The 3.5 "Holy Liberator" (CG) Pathfinder "Anti-paladin" (CE) and 5e "Oathbreaker" (Just E) among others have been constructs based around the same template Fighting Prowess + Divine Powers, just fueled from a different ethos.

4e just took the template and basically said "Do we really need separate entries for all these champions of particular alignments?. If we're going to have this class with fighting powers, plus a limited-use ability for shooting divine energy and some minor spells why not just have a generic one for every alignment and let the players fill in the details it can still be a "Paladin of whatever"?" Certainly this clashes a bit with the accepted connotations of "Paladin" and maybe a name like "Champion" with a side bar saying "Lawful Good champions are called Paladins" would have been better.

 Manchu wrote:
The Paladin, meanwhile, hails from a time when being Good did not mean acting Bad.

That and in (especially) early D&D 'good' isn't a nebulous concept to be debated and/or circumvented but a physical, concrete thing, much like evil.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The Paladin, meanwhile, hails from a time when being Good did not mean acting Bad.

That and in (especially) early D&D 'good' isn't a nebulous concept to be debated and/or circumvented but a physical, concrete thing, much like evil.

Not to over simplify things, but Good was seen as good. Evil was bad.

 Polonius wrote:
they're holy and virtuous because they are blessed by the god that's the closest analogue to the Abrahamic god

Keep in mind that Paladins derive their power from their own moral conviction. So this:

 Polonius wrote:
In a polytheistic environment, every god's blessings would, in theory, make it holy

is irrelevant thanks to this:

 Ahtman wrote:
in (especially) early D&D 'good' isn't a nebulous concept to be debated and/or circumvented but a physical, concrete thing, much like evil

@Chongara: I go pretty easy on 4E when it comes to most issues but I think the 4E designers got Paladins mostly wrong. 5E is heads and shoulders better without even (IIRC) resorting to any kind of alignment mechanic restriction.


FYI we have had an in-depth discussion about the Paladin class before. It's starts here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1020/569243.page#7088398

 Manchu wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
they're holy and virtuous because they are blessed by the god that's the closest analogue to the Abrahamic god

Keep in mind that Paladins derive their power from their own moral conviction. So this:

 Polonius wrote:
In a polytheistic environment, every god's blessings would, in theory, make it holy

is irrelevant thanks to this:

 Ahtman wrote:
in (especially) early D&D 'good' isn't a nebulous concept to be debated and/or circumvented but a physical, concrete thing, much like evil

@Chongara: I go pretty easy on 4E when it comes to most issues but I think the 4E designers got Paladins mostly wrong. 5E is heads and shoulders better without even (IIRC) resorting to any kind of alignment mechanic restriction.


FYI we have had an in-depth discussion about the Paladin class before. It's starts here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1020/569243.page#7088398

If they had presented it as "Divine Champion" with a side-bar " Paladins are LG Divine Champions, who <insert more standard paladin oath here> and often follow <list of good deities" and/or as a Lawful Good only Paragon Path for the "Divine Champion" would that have been a more palatable approach to it? > or some other scenario where the "Oath to Cause" remains intact for "Paladins" but the overall ability chassis is still drawn from a generic template for all characters following a similar archetype just with different sorts of divinity running under the hood.

Torture and execution inherently evil?

Well, according to the creator, executions, even of children, are all ok so long as you are executing evil:
"Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old adage about nits making lice applies. Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct."
-Gary Gygax
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-alignment-by-gygax.html

"Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves." -Gary Gygax, Dragonsfoot

Seems like torturing, and probably genocide, should be okay by that logic, so long as the paladin is only torturing Evil. Good thing they can detect that!

 Chongara wrote:
If they had presented it as "Divine Champion" with a side-bar " Paladins are LG Divine Champions, who <insert more standard paladin oath here> and often follow <list of good deities" and/or as a Lawful Good only Paragon Path for the "Divine Champion" would that have been a more palatable approach to it? > or some other scenario where the "Oath to Cause" remains intact for "Paladins" but the overall ability chassis is still drawn from a generic template for all characters following a similar archetype just with different sorts of divinity running under the hood.

Divine Champion ... that's some kind of FR prestige class IIRC. The Paladin brand should never ever be conflated whatsoever with the Cleric brand, which is exactly what FR did and unfortunately 4E got that wrong as well. So you can have a Chaotic Evil Paladin in 4E, which is garbage. So what did 4E get right? Even though 4E Paladins are Champions of [insert deity], they do not derive their powers from said deity (as FR Paladins do, a la Clerics) but rather from some kind of rites associated with training and so on.

5E returns to the idealized holy warrior, infused by the power of moral conviction and righteous hunger for justice. Of course, such characters are often religious. But they are analogs to the romanticized medieval knight of French legend: their prowess and chivalry are foremost the fruits of discipline and integrity.

 jmurph wrote:
Seems like torturing, and probably genocide, should be okay by that logic, so long as the paladin is only torturing Evil. Good thing they can detect that!

All of that needs to be contextualized. Gygax did not imagine a fantasy world of grays. For the same reason, the quotes you provided are not his attempts to rationalize evil actions.

Of course. My point was that the actions themselves are not necessarily inherently evil in D&D. It depends a lot on how the setting is presented.

For example, evil monster kidnaps children to eat. Evil monster only submits to power and pain. Is torturing him to reveal where the children are evil?

 jmurph wrote:
Torture and execution inherently evil?

Well, according to the creator, executions, even of children, are all ok so long as you are executing evil:
"Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old adage about nits making lice applies. Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct."
-Gary Gygax
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-alignment-by-gygax.html

"Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves." -Gary Gygax, Dragonsfoot

Seems like torturing, and probably genocide, should be okay by that logic, so long as the paladin is only torturing Evil. Good thing they can detect that!

Sounds like the kind of guy I'd never want to play with or under. The good thing about RPGs is that you can mold them to your own tastes. "Good" might be a concrete objective physical force as a matter of course in D&D, but each table or GM is allowed to decide exactly where their setting & campaign draws those lines. I'm free to disagree with Gygax and folks are free to disagree with me. If he liked playing in a gak-faced universes that placed vengeance and wrath as high virtues rather than forgiveness and mercy fine for him.

At my tables the killing of sapient beings with free will, absent them being an immediate threat to which you have no reasonable alternative responses is going to be at the very best a non-evil act if we're being generous with my definitions. If at your table your table or gygax's you're free to lop off the head of a bound and subdued killer and have the angels sing your praises, whatever I guess. You can't argue taste. Heavens knows Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Grand Theft Auto, and The Punisher are all popular enough.

Divine Champion ... that's some kind of FR prestige class IIRC. The Paladin brand should never ever be conflated whatsoever with the Cleric brand, which is exactly what FR did and unfortunately 4E got that wrong as well. So you can have a Chaotic Evil Paladin in 4E, which is garbage. So what did 4E get right? Even though 4E Paladins are Champions of [insert deity], they do not derive their powers from said deity (as FR Paladins do, a la Clerics) but rather from some kind of rites associated with training and so on.

Again we're getting kind of hung up on the text. "Divine Champion" was just name rattled off the top of my head. Let's say we call "MARTIAL_CLASS_04_SUB_ROLE_DIVINE" where "Paladins" are "Lawful good ~", "MARTIAL_CLASS_04_SUB_ROLE_DIVINE" . What I'm trying to get at here is that "Paladin" is one incarnation of sort of a very standard class design in D&D. Where you've got fighting powers, an ability to channel divine energy and some minor spells.

For example, evil monster kidnaps children to eat. Evil monster only submits to power and pain. Is torturing him to reveal where the children are evil?

A) Torture doesn't work.
B) Is it a sapient being with true free will? Things like Demons, Dragons and some incarnations of Orcs and the like are evil by nature and do not have free will. They are compelled to kill and destroy as we are to eat, drink and laugh. Such a thing is a non-person entity with no ethical value to it's life, nor is something like a Vampire that can exist only by killing persons. If it has free will and with the same drives & motivations as other persons come to do evil than it's life has the same ethical weight as ours, because it is no different than us in any way that matters despite having rocks for a face or whatever. He'd be given the same consideration as a human serial killer or cannibal or whatever.

@Chongara: I made a crack about "Divine Champion" to illustrate the larger point; the joke is, FR muddied the waters as far as this Fighting Clerics notion about Paladins (as if Clerics weren't already tough). As to your recipe-esque approach to Paladins (1 cup Fighter, 1 tablespoon Cleric), I think I have already addressed that -- but at a more fundamental level, I think it is a mistake to design RPGs from a code-based perspective, unless you just want to play out the math of Pathfinder or 4E, which to be fair is what many fans of those systems like to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jmurph wrote:
For example, evil monster kidnaps children to eat. Evil monster only submits to power and pain. Is torturing him to reveal where the children are evil?

I can't answer for Gary Gygax, God rest his soul, but here is my best Gygaxian ruling: Morality is a dimension of reality; it is a component of the nature of all things, including acts. Some beings have no ability to influence their moral nature. Acting according to their nature, they work weal or wreak woe. It is in the nature of the playable races, however, to influence their own moral character by their thoughts and deeds. A human, elf, or dwarf (etc) who tortures taints her own moral character because of the inherent evil of the act of torture. The alignment of the subject of the torture is therefore irrelevant.

Balance wrote:As with most things, talk to your DM. As long as you're true to the setting, it should be workable.

The Raven Queen is kind of a 'good' death god. I think there's some stuff about more death in the right time and such, but 4e lore is not my strongest suite.

As I said earlier ITT, this is kind of a backup idea character, and I'd be sure to check with the DM(s)? And yeah, Raven Queen is the deity of the realm of the dead. She doesn't preside over the transition from life to death, but the souls of those who are already dead. She is also the goddess of Fate and punishes those who attempt to break away from their own.

lonestarr777 wrote:In all seriousness I'd reccomend more playing him up as an Inquisitor and less as a palladin. Also I highly reccomend the upgrade to 5th, its a lot more flavorful than 4ths deckbuilding. Also includes a 'hot topic' path for pallys.

I guess he'd be less "holy warrior" and more "warrior chosen as the god's divine retribution". With small update here: looked through all source material, and my alignment is not tied to my deity... so he's unaligned and still following RQ


And the game is in 4th edition because it's the books that we have on hand, and don't have the kind of scratch to plop down on a whole new set of 5th ed. stuff

Manchu wrote:A Paladin is a holy warrior. If you don't want to RP the holy part, consider playing a Fighter instead. And if you just want to play a ruthless agent of some grim deity, try Cleric.

We have a cleric in the party. 4th ed. fighters cannot take plate armor, and while that's not necessarily an issue (my main/favored tank class uses leather), it does mean that the slightly defensive "Weaponmaster" I have on file doesn't have as high a base AC as the paladin does.



As the party isn't entirely set in stone, there's still time for our party to work out it's composition (really, my PC is the only thing not set, the other group members have a better feel for synergies)

4E Fighters can't wear plate mail - Wha...?!?

 Alpharius wrote:
4E Fighters can't wear plate mail - Wha...?!?

edit.... nvm. The only way to get a fighter into plate is by taking the "pregen" Knight subclass (I tend to auto click weaponmaster)

Well, it's not like 4E is proper D&D I guess the armor interferes with their 'Feats o' fury' or their healing surges...

Paladins were also derived from the Carolingian stories, Charlemagne's Peers like Roland/Orlando. They were far more Holy Warriors than were Arthurian Knights. I would refer to those stories as a source for how to (possibly) behave as a Paladin. They would not have thought of torture-- at least torture of those who are not their 'equals'-- as evil. That is a modern view of torture.

Why torture anyway? Use magic, or social engineering. ESP, Detect Thoughts, Charm, etc... Far more effective.

Also, It is only murder when you kill without justification one of your own species, or genus-- if you want to extend it further. Was it murder when a Homo Sapiens killed a Homo Neanderthalensis? Or vice versa?

In D&D I suppose all the possible PC "races" count as being of the same genus/species.) However, killing Goblins is just killing-- Unless you are a Goblin-- no different than killing a pig or chicken, except you aren't going to eat the goblin, or are you? A Paladin killing unarmed Goblin prisoners so that they may not trouble anyone again is not risking his alignment in any way-- but he would if he released them. ( Would his alignment be at risk if he slaughtered a flock of sheep to prevent the spread of hoof and mouth disease?) Wasteful killing would ding his alignment though.

The DM could chose to view all sentient, anthropomorphic 'races' as part of the same genus/species-- Homo Sapiens, Homo Orquensis, Homo Goblinensis, Homo Pointy-Eared-Freaquensis, etc. Might make for an interesting basis for a campaign too.

About Gygax: There are threads Here on Dragonsfoot.Org where he discusses many things, including alignment. Worth reading if you haven't already. It looks like some of you have.

 Red Harvest wrote:


In D&D I suppose all the possible PC "races" count as being of the same genus/species.) However, killing Goblins is just killing-- Unless you are a Goblin-- no different than killing a pig or chicken, except you aren't going to eat the goblin, or are you? A Paladin killing unarmed Goblin prisoners so that they may not trouble anyone again is not risking his alignment in any way-- but he would if he released them. ( Would his alignment be at risk if he slaughtered a flock of sheep to prevent the spread of hoof and mouth disease?) Wasteful killing would ding his alignment though.

Well that depends on how we're dealing with goblins. Are goblins people in this particular campaign? In the sense of being thinking, feeling, free-willed beings with capable of things other than random destruction? If so then yeah, killing them as a matter of course when alternatives are available is certainly not a good thing. There's a sliding scale here with something like the typical depictions of a 40k Ork on one end, and the goblins & orcs of the Warcraft universe on another. There's a line somewhere in between where the life of the being in question gains the same ethical weight of any in the fictional world.

I hate Paladins. I got kicked out of the first (and only) D&D group I tried to join with my buddies in college because I offended the paladin player by being a chaotic neutral barbarian and tossed an informant off a building once he gave me all the information I had. The paladin ordered the city guard to torch the entire town to kill me off, then halted the game and the player flipped out on me for "not taking it seriously". I haven't met anyone since who told me I was wrong, given my character class. A pox on Paladins!!

But if you arent a paladin then how will you use "Lay on hands?"

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I hate Paladins. I got kicked out of the first (and only) D&D group I tried to join with my buddies in college because I offended the paladin player by being a chaotic neutral barbarian and tossed an informant off a building once he gave me all the information I had. The paladin ordered the city guard to torch the entire town to kill me off, then halted the game and the player flipped out on me for "not taking it seriously". I haven't met anyone since who told me I was wrong, given my character class. A pox on Paladins!!

A "good" GM would've stopped that gak right there... probably made the Paladin roll some kind of check to see if he knew or saw what you did, then made you roll a bluff check to lie about what happened when the paladin wonders where the prisoner is.