Can you play a paladin without being a party pooper

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

Oh yeah forgot about that aspect...the DM...the Dm can be a real dick abut that apparently since he is the final judge of what makes a paladin fall. Heard of ******* Dms that give you the option to have billions of people die thuse losing your palidan powers or disobey your vows which will get rid of your abilties and will actively prevent them from taking any third option.

This is a huge factor. For instance, is the paladin player objecting to an ambush because he truly sees it as cowardly or because the DM is telling him he must object? Most of my paladin characters are of the belief that a fair fight means he has not prepared effectively. Generally speaking, they would use ambush in a fight, but they would ambush with the intent to subdue rather than kill where possible.

If they objected to an ambush, it would be because he is not sure those people need to be attacked. A fight that may happen becomes a fight that will happen. Instead, he would much rather setup the ambush as a backup plan and talk to the people instead.

Admittedly, I play the paladin archetype instead of being specifically tied to the D&D system, but the concept is still there. When you are working outside such a dogmatic alignment system, it becomes much easier. It helps a lot if your DM allows you XP for solving situations without violence. In 3rd Edition D&D the problem is even worse, because paladins are actually very bad at non-violent options (they could try Diplomacy + Sense Motives, but they have too few skill points to be really good at it unless they focus on those two skills almost exclusively).

How often is torture, poison or lying a good idea anyway? Information gained under torture is seldom reliable. Poisons are often too slow-acting or too easy to resist (most foes with a low enough Fortitude save for me to poison are weak enough for me to not need the poison against) and often expensive one-shot weapons as well. Lying undermines the benefits of having a reputation for being honest and trustworthy. When people know that you are the good-guy, convincing them to help you becomes far easier. Even stealth can fall under this umbrella to an extent; heavily armoured guys with low sneaking skills will find stealth an unreliable option most of the time.

In the words of Paks, “You know the worth of my word, and I know the worth of yours.” In fact, the Deed of Paksennarrion (spelling?) is an excellent example of a paladin in action. The Protector of the Small series is really good for it as well.

However, if your DM makes torture super-reliable and honesty worthless to potential allies, a paladin is going to be at a disadvantage. In other news, wizards are going to be at a disadvantage if your DM makes 90% of the game take place in anti-magic zones.

Play up these practical motivations for doing things and the paladin can come across as the voice of wisdom for the group.

One thing that might help mitigate the appearance of having few options is to brush up on tactics. Make the most of mounted combat (those charges to get through enemy lines and start beating up the wizard or archers), or spear formations, use cover or height advantages. You might find some really inventive tricks to try out here - http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCE...ingsmirror.htm

I hope that helps!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I've gravitated toward paladins whenever I've played the D&D family of games. I prefer the lightning-bolts-and-pillars-of-salt approach: the paladin as justiciar of Zeus or Old Testament YHWH, going about smiting Evil, with the ends justifying means whenever said means don't actively endanger the deity's own personal faithful or those of his close divine pals. Less Boy Scout or self-sacrificing saint, more instrument of divine wrath against Evil. And I've always been fortunate enough to have DMs who've agreed: As long as any slaying, ambushing, looting, and general murder-hobo-ness is always harming Evil folk and never harming Good folk, it's fine . . . no need to be some paragon of abstract virtue for its own sake, not in the gritty trenches of bloody warfare against demons, devils, and the undead.

I think it may have been Hobbes who said that "In war, force and fraud are virtues." (The philosopher, not the tiger!)

Bill Stoddard

[Disliker of the mary sue]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think it may have been Hobbes who said that "In war, force and fraud are virtues." (The philosopher, not the tiger!)

Bill Stoddard

Strangely enough I could imagine the tiger saying that as some sort of weird punch line.....

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

Strangely enough I could imagine the tiger saying that as some sort of weird punch line.....

There's at least one of the Sunday strips composed of quotes of John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, I think.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think it may have been Hobbes who said that "In war, force and fraud are virtues." (The philosopher, not the tiger!)

Given that the historical French paladins who inspired the character class were war leaders, famed for their virtues as such, that's quite apt! My own style of GMing would have the gods viewing a paladin who didn't ambush, trap, poison, and generally go all-out to slaughter Evil in the field – and who didn't drag back the spoils to build bigger temples and arm more crusaders – as "not trying hard enough." The idea is to win the war against Evil for your gods, not to lose by declaring intentions, insisting on a level playing field, and not maintaining arms and armor of war . . . those are mortal ideals, not divine ones.

[mindstalk]

Poul Anderson's _Three Hearts and Three Lions_ is said to be the immediate progenitor of the paladin; I don't remember the book to say what that means, though.

http://www.castaliahouse.com/retrosp...poul-anderson/ says
"Certainly, the laying on of hands, the warhorse, and the “Holy Sword” are all here. The biggest discrepancy is that Gygax made the “protection from evil” ability always on and primarily benefiting the paladin himself. Poul Anderson actually has it being much more powerful and protecting the party’s entire camp if certain preparations are followed, though it can be spoiled if the paladin so much as curses or entertains impure thoughts. The latter could be hard to avoid given the alluring nature of the various elf women, nymphs, and evil sorceresses that are on the prowl…!"

TV Tropes includes "Knight in Shining Armor" for the book.

Me, I'd guess more players have Lancelot or Galahad or Gareth in mind than the French paladins.

[Disliker of the mary sue]

Originally Posted by mindstalk

Me, I'd guess more players have Lancelot or Galahad or Gareth in mind than the French paladins.

It weirder when at least in 3.5 their is a knight class that does the whole chivalry thing and all that. Admitely it is in a book more obscure then the player handbook 1 so I can understand not knowing about it

[mindstalk]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

It weirder when at least in 3.5 their is a knight class that does the whole chivalry thing and all that. Admitely it is in a book more obscure then the player handbook 1 so I can understand not knowing about it

AD&D had a cavalier class I think, mainstream enough to be in the D&D cartoon.

But I think Lancelot and Galahad aren't just knights. _Once and Future King_ has a laying-on-hands scene with Lancelot, with roots in Mallory, and Galahad has supernatural levels of purity, at least in adaptation:

"My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure." -- Tennyson

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

Is their a way to play a paladin that doesn't really make the rest of the group want to just kill your character in their sleep?

My paladin dressed like an assassin and when asked what his business was, said that he was in pest control. He cultivated a clear idea about what was important and what wasn't, and what was important was exterminating beasts with a taste for humanlike flesh and eliminating marauding bandits. Not much else qualified although he would have frowned on anything that qualified as preying on civilians and he would accept a surrender if one was offered. The mercenaries he was working with got on with him well enough.

[mindstalk]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

The paladin, probably the most controversial class in Dnd considering how many people have bad stories about them. From what a experienced dnd player I game with said being a paladin gives you a very strong leash to not screw around in the story because one bad screw up and you lose all your power and usefulness to the party. It apparently as difficult a task as keeping morality 10 in world of darkness (I still wonder how gm is suppose to determine if someone is thinking bad things but that another thread).

I also basically heard that you kind are the party pooper....for example your partly like plans an ambush and then the paladin comes along and say something along the line of "we can't do this the cowards way, we have to go right up to our foes and fight them fairly" or something like that. And if you party is having a moral discussion the paladin will make things a hundred times more heated.

Is their a way to play a paladin that doesn't really make the rest of the group want to just kill your character in their sleep?

Most obviously, know your party before making PCs. Big Damn Heroes in general won't mesh well with murderhobos; it's just that the paladin is the one class that's a priori supposed to be a Big Damn Hero, with a Mission. If the existing party is a bunch of scummy amoral adventurers, someone probably shouldn't bring in a paladin; equally, if a party is a bunch of good heroes, someone shouldn't bring in Belkar.

You can imagine exceptions to all that, but in general, if the party is a random assortment of violent misfits, a paladin's unlikely to fit in without conflict, or to even be logically in the same place with them, unless arresting them. If the other PCs are fine with not being evil and with helping people in need, then you're not likely to have such a problem.

As for coexisting with a thief, depends on the fluff. Someone with the class or skillset of a thief could be a government (or Rebel) spy, not a common crook. Sneaking in to look at papers during an investigation can be a lot morally different from sneaking in to steal the wealth of an honest tradesman or merchant.