# Pathfinder 2's Armor & A Preview of the Paladin!



## Pokelefi (May 8, 2018)

I was interested in Pathfinder second edition at first. 
But for someone how is still new to table top and pen and paper rpgs this still seams very complex 
I did think it would go as simple like dungeon world or medium complex like 5e.
I still might give it a try depending how good this is to dm and how fast is is to lern with out know pathfinder first edition 

But that fact that alignment still locks a class is not really what I was looking for...
Not to mention that I'm disappointed from the ansestery thing I was hoping for a easy to home brew crossbreed option not just race named...
well maby I will swing around fi the show more how dming there new edition works encounter building and monster  building and if it will be a rules heavy (what leads to too much rules lawyering)  or dm calls


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## TwoSix (May 8, 2018)

Judging by the posts, I think they're locked in for LG paladins for the playtest (which I think might have gone to the printers already), but they're still evaluating what to do for Core based on feedback.


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## thekittenhugs (May 8, 2018)

Paizo continues to hedge all its future bets on its current fanbase loving the complexity of the system above all else, even as the less-hardcore fans are cannibalized by 5e. It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them.


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## MoonSong (May 8, 2018)

Can't say I'm in love with tying paladins so close to deities. But I'll have to wait and see, this stuff seems so complex right now.


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## Zansy (May 8, 2018)

PF2 is repeating the same grudge I had with the paladins in PF1. I'm rather disappointed by the perceived inflexibility that paladins have in both PF1 and PF2. all that PF1 had to offer was "The paladin is LG flavor with different shapes of sprinkles on it." That's a very narrow vision for what paladins are and can be, even for the core game (Especially when you say that the rogue, in contrast, is having her options and horizons *broadened!*) I hope that if and when they move on they'll be able to contemplate that quite a few people don't want to play the paladin because there's only one interpretation of it. the idea of different types of paladins are best off already in the core game, and not a peripheral, or perhaps obscure, supplementary product.


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## pemerton (May 8, 2018)

I'm not really into PF, but I am really into paladins as characters in FRPGing. I don't really like the way the "code" has been framed:



			
				PF preview said:
			
		

> If a situation places two tenets in conflict, you aren't in a no-win situation; instead, follow the most important tenet. . . .
> 
> * You must never willingly commit an evil act . . .
> 
> ...



I think that the paladin is a fundamentally _hopeful_ class - it's about faith in divine providence and deliverance. (Denethor's failure in LotR is _to have given up hope_.)

Ranking the moral obligations of a paladin, on the other hand, seems fundamentally pessimistic, and hence itself contrary to the paladins' faith.

The example given in the preview page is of lying to an evil king asked you if innocent lawbreakers were hiding in your church so he could execute them. But if the king asks, the paladin can simply refuse to answer. There's no legitimate law that obliges handing over "innocent lawbreakers" (it's not 100% clear what this means, but we could eg imagine an underground railroad situation).

The evil king might then imprison the paladin, but to seek to avoid that possibility by lying is precisly the sort of giving up that seems at odd with a paladin's faith.


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## zztong (May 8, 2018)

The best part about Paladin codes, anathema, and alignment restrictions is that they can be easily ignored or house-ruled without messing up anything else.


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## Erekose (May 8, 2018)

Very hard to say from the snippets we see posted but I have to say that each time I see one I can't help but wonder how Pathfinder 2E is going to be significantly better than Pathfinder 1E as opposed to just different . . .


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## Zansy (May 8, 2018)

zztong said:


> The best part about Paladin codes, anathema, and alignment restrictions is that they can be easily ignored or house-ruled without messing up anything else.




and the worst part is that too many gaming tables, including (most likely) organized play, won't turn a blind eye to this sort of thing.


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## pemerton (May 8, 2018)

zztong said:


> The best part about Paladin codes, anathema, and alignment restrictions is that they can be easily ignored or house-ruled without messing up anything else.



Agreed. But as someone who enjoys both playing and GMing characters with religious convictions, I look at the system's treatment as these matters as a sign of what it envisages for the play of these PC types.


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## ddaley (May 8, 2018)

I guess I am just old school at heart... I like that Paladins are tied to being LG.  That seems to mesh well with the intent of the class.

As for the complexity, I think there is still a place for a more in depth rules system.  I haven't been following the PF2 news that closely, so am not sure just how complex it is going to be.  I have to admit, that reading about the paladin, some of it sounded Greek to me.  "Panels to Str/Dex/Con?"  No clue.  "Image dice?"  No clue.


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## Mouseferatu (May 8, 2018)

ddaley said:


> "Panels to Str/Dex/Con?"  No clue.  "Image dice?"  No clue.




I could be wrong, but I'm about 90% sure that "panels" is just a typo for "penalties."


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## Zansy (May 8, 2018)

ddaley said:


> I guess I am just old school at heart... I like that Paladins are tied to being LG. That seems to mesh well with the intent of the class.
> 
> As for the complexity, I think there is still a place for a more in depth rules system. I haven't been following the PF2 news that closely, so am not sure just how complex it is going to be. I have to admit, that reading about the paladin, some of it sounded Greek to me. "Panels to Str/Dex/Con?" No clue. "Image dice?" No clue.




On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.

once again - 
1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.


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## ddaley (May 8, 2018)

Zansy said:


> On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.
> 
> once again -
> 1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.




Paladins have never been for everyone.  You have to want to play a paladin.  I personally have never played one.  I have been in a party where someone did a great job at playing a paladin.  If you don't like what is expected of a paladin, then choose another class.  No one says that you have to play a paladin.  There is nothing special about clerics.  Anyone can play one.  Paladin is a more niche class.


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## Morrus (May 8, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> I could be wrong, but I'm about 90% sure that "panels" is just a typo for "penalties."




Damn you, autocorrect!


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## Zansy (May 8, 2018)

ddaley said:


> Paladins have never been for everyone.  You have to want to play a paladin.  I personally have never played one.  I have been in a party where someone did a great job at playing a paladin.  If you don't like what is expected of a paladin, then choose another class.  No one says that you have to play a paladin.  There is nothing special about clerics.  Anyone can play one.  Paladin is a more niche class.




The problem is not that people don't want to play paladins just because they're a niche market. paladins aren't as big a niche as you make them. If paladins were such a niche, as opposed to something iconic that a lot of people want to play, then why haven't hey just stuck with a "knight" or a "cavalier" for the core book and put the paladin in a supplement?

The real problem, my friend, that paizo isn't thinking about (or at least, are putting on the backburner) is what _else_ a paladin could be - and it should be their every interest for paizo to make the class more accessible and attract a wider audience for it. WotC, in 5e, shows that's possible, they let the paladin pick his own code of conduct from a selection. Even if the selections are limited, and don't cover EVERY possible demographic, they still allow people to think that paladins aren't bound to the stigmas that haunt them.

there's no shortage of people who want to play a paladin. I want to play a paladin too. I just want the rules to allow me to make the paladin my own.


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## MechaTarrasque (May 8, 2018)

I was kind of hoping the paladin (or a more generic class name like champion) would be more "channel outsider" (of the Outer Planes variety), and if you channeled angels or archons (or any good outsider, since they tend to be one big happy family in PF*), you were a paladin; devils, a hellknight, demons a blackguard, etc.

And obviously, the better you synched to the outsider, the easier the channel would be, so paladins would have a strong incentive to be good.

* and letting the paladin channel any of the gooders would make it the best champion, which makes all right with the world.


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## Parmandur (May 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Agreed. But as someone who enjoys both playing and GMing characters with religious convictions, I look at the system's treatment as these matters as a sign of what it envisages for the play of these PC types.



The Paladin Code is a rather bizarre mutant form of Consequentialism, whose primary goal is even stated to be avoiding complex ethical conundruma. Seems very un-Paladin.

At this point it isn't very surprising, but good gravy does each PF2 Class have a huge number of moving parts.


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## Aldarc (May 8, 2018)

I will say this much. 5E is definitely better than Pathfinder when it comes to the issue of Paladin alignment.


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## Parmandur (May 8, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I will say this much. 5E is definitely better than Pathfinder when it comes to the issue of Paladin alignment.



It seems from this preview that PF2 is sticking to crunch-heavy Alignment all around.


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## Aldarc (May 8, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> It seems from this preview that PF2 is sticking to crunch-heavy Alignment all around.



Yeah, and this sort of decision does wonders in dissuading me from PF2. My usual group of players and I dislike mechanical alignment. When that gets hardwired into a system, it invariably causes more disruption at the table, mostly bashing it everytime it pops up in-game.


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## Kobold Boots (May 8, 2018)

1. As others have said, the blog article clearly states that the playtest focuses on LG paladins only, but it can be expected that other paladin variants will be a part of PF2 due to support from others in the office.  

2. Yes PF2 is going to be more crunchy than 5e.  However, I see a big benefit in how they're handling the paladin code.  No more being put in a bad spot by enemies, but if the paladin engineers a situation to work around the code, then they're in violation.  

This doesn't bother me.  
KB


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## TwoSix (May 8, 2018)

They should have been a little more daring and replaced paladins with inquisitors.  Same general flavor, not nearly as much baggage.


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## Aldarc (May 8, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> 1. As others have said, the blog article clearly states that the playtest focuses on LG paladins only, but it can be expected that other paladin variants will be a part of PF2 due to support from others in the office.



Part of the problem, IMHO, with Paizo's approach to Paladins and alignment is that they are putting the cart (i.e., alignment) before the horse (i.e., the archetype). This is where 5E does well when it comes to the Paladin. It starts broadly with with the archetype - the chivalrous paladin, the green knight/warden, the vindicating crusader - but then leaves the alignment to player interpretation for how they envision their character. But when Paizo says that they are essentially taking an alignment-first perspective and want to first focus on the LG paladin, then that is a massive red flag for me that their priorities are backwards.


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## Kobold Boots (May 8, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Part of the problem, IMHO, with Paizo's approach to Paladins and alignment is that they are putting the cart (i.e., alignment) before the horse (i.e., the archetype). This is where 5E does well when it comes to the Paladin. It starts broadly with with the archetype - the chivalrous paladin, the green knight/warden, the vindicating crusader - but then leaves the alignment to player interpretation for how they envision their character. But when Paizo says that they are essentially taking an alignment-first perspective and want to first focus on the LG paladin, then that is a massive red flag for me that their priorities are backwards.




To me, it's a sign that paladin is a bigger breadbox than they're willing to commit space to in the playtest material.  So if they're going to playtest anything, it's going to be the base class.


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## Xavian Starsider (May 8, 2018)

OF Preview said:


> _If a situation places two tenets in conflict, you aren't in a no-win situation; instead, follow the most important tenet. . . ._
> 
> _* You must never willingly commit an evil act . . ._
> 
> ...




If only Isaac Asimov were around to write I, Paladin about the ethical loopholes and moral traps presented by these rules. I would buy that book!


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## Kobold Boots (May 8, 2018)

Xavian Starsider said:


> If only Isaac Asimov were around to write I, Paladin about the ethical loopholes and moral traps presented by these rules. I would buy that book!




Someone should start a thread on this.


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## scotch.garble (May 8, 2018)

I have to agree with several people above, the new class previews are incomplete but are already showcasing so many moving parts.

My primary barrier to continued play with Pathfinder had been its complex class setups and rule sets. Track your spells per day for this class feature, track your point pool per day for this class feature, etc. Now armors have been expanded to two AC values with traits. 

The saving grace for me would be to see innovative encounter design, but from the previous previews it seems everything is becoming more complex.


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## Charlaquin (May 8, 2018)

If they’re planning to make Paladins Alignment-locked, and to have multiple types of Paladin locked to different alignments, then it makes sense to focus on the LG Paladin for the playtest. But I will say, I’m disappointed to see Paladins being restricted to one alignment _and_ having a universal code of conduct _in addition to_ having to choose a deity and follow its alignment restrictions and avoid its Anathema. I had been hoping the latter would replace the former, or that they’d focus on Paladins as champions of their ideals rather than gods, and leave the champion of the gods concept to Clerics.

For what it’s worth, I like that they’re very specific about what a Paladin loses if they break their code, and how they get it back. The code itself I think needs work, but at least the consequences are hard coded into the rules and aren’t just “you become a Fighter” or “you lose all of your Paladin Feats and Class Features,” and you know exactly what you need to do to repent.


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## Lidgar (May 8, 2018)

I came here looking for wit and snark from lowkey. Alas.


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## dwayne (May 8, 2018)

a paladin as I see it is just a fanatical holy warrior of a god or cause he puts above all else. so, in this case, he could be of any alignment or faith, even evil, you could even have two lawful good one at odds with one another that their god it the only true one.


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## pemerton (May 8, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> The Paladin Code is a rather bizarre mutant form of Consequentialism



I'm not sure this is right, because avoiding evil acts is ranked higher than protecting others. (I'm not sure avoiding conflicts counts as consequentialism.)

It's the conditionality of each commitment (by figuring in a strict ranking) that seems odd. That seems an admission that the world is morally imperfect, which - to me - is what seems at odds with a paladin's conviction.



TwoSix said:


> They should have been a little more daring and replaced paladins with inquisitors.  Same general flavor, not nearly as much baggage.



You're saying that if you're going to go with a morally pessimistic vision of the thing, you should go all the way?


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## MichaelSomething (May 8, 2018)

If you don't like the Paladin's code, you can always a Fighter/Cleric!  Assuming that PF2 has multi classing.


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## MoonSong (May 8, 2018)

Zansy said:


> PF2 is repeating the same grudge I had with the paladins in PF1. I'm rather disappointed by the perceived inflexibility that paladins have in both PF1 and PF2. all that PF1 had to offer was "The paladin is LG flavor with different shapes of sprinkles on it." That's a very narrow vision for what paladins are and can be, even for the core game (Especially when you say that the rogue, in contrast, is having her options and horizons *broadened!*) I hope that if and when they move on they'll be able to contemplate that quite a few people don't want to play the paladin because there's only one interpretation of it. the idea of different types of paladins are best off already in the core game, and not a peripheral, or perhaps obscure, supplementary product.





Zansy said:


> On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.
> 
> once again -
> 1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.






Zansy said:


> The problem is not that people don't want to play paladins just because they're a niche market. paladins aren't as big a niche as you make them. If paladins were such a niche, as opposed to something iconic that a lot of people want to play, then why haven't hey just stuck with a "knight" or a "cavalier" for the core book and put the paladin in a supplement?
> 
> The real problem, my friend, that paizo isn't thinking about (or at least, are putting on the backburner) is what _else_ a paladin could be - and it should be their every interest for paizo to make the class more accessible and attract a wider audience for it. WotC, in 5e, shows that's possible, they let the paladin pick his own code of conduct from a selection. Even if the selections are limited, and don't cover EVERY possible demographic, they still allow people to think that paladins aren't bound to the stigmas that haunt them.
> 
> there's no shortage of people who want to play a paladin. I want to play a paladin too. I just want the rules to allow me to make the paladin my own.




Sorry for multiquoting you, but I kinda felt like I needed to. From what I see, Paladins are a quite specific thing, archetypal, with tons of baggage and many necessary tropes. Just like the D&D wizard. I think -and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, sorry if it comes that way- you don't want to play a paladin, you want to play a holy warrior of an specific deity with features that reinforce that, and then you want to call that a paladin. But -from where I'm coming from- that isn't a paladin, that is a holy warrior. A paladin is a virtuous knightly defender of justice or a noble cause. Can a paladin be a holy warrior of a deity? of course, as long as that deity is aligned with good and justice. Does every deity have paladins? I don't think so. Can all deities have dedicated holy warriors? yes. Are all of them paladins? no, they aren't.  

The solution is not to remold the paladin into something it isn't, the solution is to have a separate class (Call it Champion or Holy Warrior) to embody that diversity you seek while leaving the paladin be what it is meant to be. Just like with wizards, I don't like them, they are quite specific and reduced into what they do and what kind of characters you can make with them. But I'm happy because I have the sorcerer, the warlock, the druid, the bard and the witch to fill those spaces instead of a watered down class that wouldn't ring true to a wizard fan because it was repurposed for my ends. Why remake something for people who don't like it at the expense of people who like it as it is?



ddaley said:


> I guess I am just old school at heart... I like that Paladins are tied to being LG.  That seems to mesh well with the intent of the class.




So do I



dwayne said:


> a paladin as I see it is just a fanatical holy warrior of a god or cause he puts above all else. so, in this case, he could be of any alignment or faith, even evil, you could even have two lawful good one at odds with one another that their god it the only true one.



You are describing holy warriors, not paladins. Paladins are empowered by Good itself, not by any random deity, that for all we know could be killed or depowered tomorrow.


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

IMO, the base class should be something like "crusader", "champion" or something like that.  Then paladin could be the lawful good sub-class of that.

Also, I dislike the "if you do evil you lose all your powers" and would much rather see something like "when you do good, you gain a spell point", or "when defending the innocent, you gain +1d6 radiant damage".


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## Charlaquin (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> IMO, the base class should be something like "crusader", "champion" or something like that.  Then paladin could be the lawful good sub-class of that.



Cavalier would have precedent from AD&D.



mellored said:


> Also, I dislike the "if you do evil you lose all your powers" and would much rather see something like "when you do good, you gain a spell point", or "when defending the innocent, you gain +1d6 radiant damage".



At least you don’t lose _all_ your class features. Just power points and righteous ally. And at least it’s “just” a ritual to atone (we’ll see how difficult the ritual is to pull off). Generally though, I agree. Carrots work better than sticks.


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## Sunseeker (May 9, 2018)

I'm a little disappointed they decided to stick to the LG paladin.  There's just so much more creative space without it.  A simple "must stay true to the alignment of your deity" would allow for variety, but also alignment stickiness.


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## Kobold Boots (May 9, 2018)

I’m a bit disappointed too.  Not at any one poster for their opinion on Paladins, but that so many are being myopic about Paizo’s supposed intentions with the class when they clearly told folks up front in the blog post exactly why the classic Paladin was in the play test and it wouldn’t be the only option in the final game.

I’d hoped for better in folks, oh well


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## Shasarak (May 9, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I will say this much. 5E is definitely better than Pathfinder when it comes to the issue of Paladin alignment.




I do prefer the PF2 version of the Paladin over the 5e version but to be fair it is probably because the 5e one is just based off the problems that began with the 4e Paladin.


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Cavalier would have precedent from AD&D.



Possibly.   Though to me it says more about mounted warrior than divine warrior.


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## Shasarak (May 9, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> The solution is not to remold the paladin into something it isn't, the solution is to have a separate class (Call it Champion or Holy Warrior) to embody that diversity you seek while leaving the paladin be what it is meant to be. Just like with wizards, I don't like them, they are quite specific and reduced into what they do and what kind of characters you can make with them. But I'm happy because I have the sorcerer, the warlock, the druid, the bard and the witch to fill those spaces instead of a watered down class that wouldn't ring true to a wizard fan because it was repurposed for my ends. Why remake something for people who don't like it at the expense of people who like it as it is?




I think you make some good points.  In regards to the Holy Warrior idea, I agree that for many Gods it does not even make sense to have a group of heavy armoured fanatics within the church.



> You are describing holy warriors, not paladins. Paladins are empowered by Good itself, not by any random deity, that for all we know could be killed or depowered tomorrow.




I also prefer the traditional "Good" Paladins over the idea they must follow a God but then again I was a big fan of the Paksenarrion novels.


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## MoonSong (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> IMO, the base class should be something like "crusader", "champion" or something like that.  Then paladin could be the lawful good sub-class of that.
> 
> Also, I dislike the "if you do evil you lose all your powers" and would much rather see something like "when you do good, you gain a spell point", or "when defending the innocent, you gain +1d6 radiant damage".




Why not have the cake and eat it too? Why not have two classes, one your purported crusader tailor made to support hundreds of snowflake holy warriors that fit one super specific domain/deity each and one single paladin class that embodies the paladin with all trapping (Lawful Good only, code of conduct, one evil act and you fall perhaps forever) ?


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## JohnnyZemo (May 9, 2018)

As a GM, I have to say I am not a fan of this "spend an action to activate your shield" thing. I don't want each character's armor class to be constantly fluctuating during combat. Waaaaay too much to keep track of. I mean, a few buffs are fine; I'm used to Shield of Faith and Mage Armor. And then you're going to have players who forget to say they're using the shield each round. (If they want to just say they are always using it, I could live with that.)

Pathfinder's strength is giving players lots of options. Making it painful for the GM is not helpful.


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## Lokius (May 9, 2018)

I like PF 2e paladins, they embody what the paladin concept originated as a holy champion of good and justice. I think sticking to that as the starting point is good. The paladin code for me was also a good move, it makes it much more accessible, previously it was vague. I will also add that the DnD 5e paladin 'oaths' are also articulated. The Paizo paladin is much more representative of the paladin class roots in AD&D. 

As a design choice I like it. It sets a point of difference to 5e and that is a good thing for us the players. PF 2e shouldn't be a clone or be dictated to by the design choices of Wizards. I like it as a design choice that says 'a paladin is not just a fanatical warrior, a paladin is a holy champion of good and justice.' If you want to play a fanatical warrior (hellknight etc) then you can play a cleric or fighter who RP's that devotion. Paladins as a concept get great benefits and are thus held to higher standards for always having to be good.  LG is the hardest alignment to stick to in terms of RP advantage, it means the character always has to work for someone else rather than herself. This is much more of a burden, LE can use the law for personal advantage, CE can steal, murder etc all they want. Also the armour champion and protecting others works a lot better with a good alignment than neutral or evil alignments.

Next. Crunch. I would say PF 2e is looking to be a medium crunch system same as PF 1e. 5e is definitely a low crunch system. Players make about 6 choices after creation (excluding spells) that shape there character, the most meaningful one being for when they pick a specialisation (if that isn't determined at creation). But in reality the only other choices after creation are feat or stat increase. I like 5e, its a low crunch accessible game and a great way to get people into roleplaying. It isn't a good system if you like really tailoring the way a character plays. 5e was really set up for its hard to get character builds wrong and that is great. What is good is we have other games like PF that do allow us to do that if we feel like it. PF 2e looks to be cleaning up and having a good base system for all the curly rules and interactions PF1e had. So while it has a medium amount of crunch it had a solid simple framework to underpin it and now these are built right into their classes from the get go. This is a good natural evolution, it just takes it in a different direction for 5e, but again this is a great thing for us players. 

Tying back to the paladin thing, PF2e seems like it will have a lot of flavour options for paladins in the way you want to build them. The flavours will all be 'good' but the things you aren't allowed to do based on your diety or culture will help differentiate the RP aspects that are enshrined by 'oaths' in 5e. PF2e will enable you much greater flexibility in the way you build your paladin (more support, defense or attack) by the class options as you build rather than locking them to an oath that says what aura you will get. In the long run each PF2e paladin is likely to play a lot more different that each 5e paladin.

TLDR: Paladins being special is a good thing, its what differentiates a paladin from a fighter, cleric of fighter/cleric devoted to a deity. 

PF2e looks to be a medium crunch system built on a simple action economy framework. Simple actions but a lot more character choices and abilities chose from.


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## Pokelefi (May 9, 2018)

> JohnnyZemo - Today, 03:21 AM
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I really wonder how pathfinder 2 will be to dm 
I always hear that pathfinder 1 is a nightmare to dm and  not advised for beginners 
the amount of player choice ( even if i like the idea behind it) I'm affaried the either make dm very unpredictable (more then usual) 
I wander how fast it will play


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> Why not have the cake and eat it too? Why not have two classes, one your purported crusader tailor made to support hundreds of snowflake holy warriors that fit one super specific domain/deity each and one single paladin class that embodies the paladin with all trapping (Lawful Good only, code of conduct, one evil act and you fall perhaps forever) ?



I think you got your snowflake backward.  You suggest the paladin gets it's own special class and can't share with any other alignment.

As far as code of conduct and penalties for breaking it (though I still like bonus better), I expect it to happen to all of them.

Though it really makes me want to put them in a scenario where they have to choose between lawful, and good.  Like telling them to execute a prisoner they know to be innocent, but was found guilty under the law.


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## MechaTarrasque (May 9, 2018)

JohnnyZemo said:


> As a GM, I have to say I am not a fan of this "spend an action to activate your shield" thing. I don't want each character's armor class to be constantly fluctuating during combat. Waaaaay too much to keep track of. I mean, a few buffs are fine; I'm used to Shield of Faith and Mage Armor. And then you're going to have players who forget to say they're using the shield each round. (If they want to just say they are always using it, I could live with that.)
> 
> Pathfinder's strength is giving players lots of options. Making it painful for the GM is not helpful.




It certainly feels like you need a white board more than a DM screen for PF2.


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## Zansy (May 9, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> Sorry for multiquoting you, but I kinda felt like I needed to. From what I see, Paladins are a quite specific thing, archetypal, with tons of baggage and many necessary tropes. Just like the D&D wizard. I think -and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, sorry if it comes that way- you don't want to play a paladin, you want to play a holy warrior of an specific deity with features that reinforce that, and then you want to call that a paladin. But -from where I'm coming from- that isn't a paladin, that is a holy warrior. A paladin is a virtuous knightly defender of justice or a noble cause. Can a paladin be a holy warrior of a deity? of course, as long as that deity is aligned with good and justice. Does every deity have paladins? I don't think so. Can all deities have dedicated holy warriors? yes. Are all of them paladins? no, they aren't.
> 
> The solution is not to remold the paladin into something it isn't, the solution is to have a separate class (Call it Champion or Holy Warrior) to embody that diversity you seek while leaving the paladin be what it is meant to be. Just like with wizards, I don't like them, they are quite specific and reduced into what they do and what kind of characters you can make with them. But I'm happy because I have the sorcerer, the warlock, the druid, the bard and the witch to fill those spaces instead of a watered down class that wouldn't ring true to a wizard fan because it was repurposed for my ends. Why remake something for people who don't like it at the expense of people who like it as it is?



Okay, first of all you _are_ putting words in my mouth. What makes your super-narrow definition for paladin more valid than my more broadly applicable one? What makes you think all those "necessary tropes", which include among them being a stick in the mud, or "the party babysitter", are a _positive thing? _

You are defining the paladin as you think it should be, and make the distinction between a holy warrior and a paladin. Now, I'm not a historian or anything, but I think that's a misleading distinction. 

In our reality, Paladins, from what I could tell, are a very specific brand of warriors, they are these big-shot Elite knights that were originally Charlemagne's closest people. They were (again, from what I could tell,) religious, but at their time, almost everyone —especially if they were anybody important in Europe — were also religious. that distinction doesn't speak much to me as a foundation that paladins have to be Lawful Good and serve a Lawful Good deity, at least not any more than if we were discussing those limitations on a Cleric. 

What the historical Version _did_ have, from what I could tell from reading a bit, was similar to what we are referring to as "The code of conduct". Which basically said what Charlemagne thought were the ideal qualities of his warriors. But who's to say that in a fantasy world there wouldn't be someone else to give different qualities of what a paladin is? they aren't the first or the last "rank of elite warriors", not historically and not in fantasy.

 I really don't mind if players who want to play the paladin of Valor and Justice have their thing, either. But, like it or not, paladins in RPGs are the default name to the actual representatives of "holy warriors" in the core rulebook. That's why they have features like "Lay on Hands" and divine spells ingrained in them. That is how I see it, and that's how a lot of people happen to (and will) see it, too. If you're already planning on representing the paladin as THE holy warrior, you may as well get it right the first time and not patch it up later.

 If you want play a holy warrior, it makes sense to be a paladin, because of this very misrepresentation issue. If the class gives the feel and diversity it should have, normal players shouldn't have to resort to brewing up a "cleric/fighter/bard" combo or something else crazy *just because *you don't want to deal with the code of conduct, or *just because* you don't want to serve a Lawful Good deity and be Lawful Good++. Can you agree that it's a lot of wasted effort to not be that one type of paladin, that you envision should be "the only one?" 

On a final note, making the class more accessible to others, and offering the players more than one way to play it, is not "remolding the class to what it isn't"; rather, it's expanding the concept to a more inclusive perspective, that appeals to a broader audience. Anyone can add almost any impositions on their character if they really wanted to enough, it's messing with those impositions once they are official that is a LOT more work, or require you to have the right group who just doesn't care enough about those limitations to uphold them, and both of those are privileges not every paladin wannabee has.

 Because paizo has such a narrowminded view of what a paladin is, it means I can't play the paladin I want with their system. To appeal to their own interests, i'll also discuss the factor of probability - the more specific the requirements you impose, the less odds you have of finding someone who can meet those requirements, which means less people are going to meet those requirements and thus simply not pay a pally. 

I agree with you that you should be able to play the paladin the way you envision it, as a devout knight of order and good, divine or otherwise, but not at the cost of everyone else who wants to play it even slightly differently.

To say that not every kind of holy warrior can be a paladin class in an RPG is an old-fashioned bias, because if it's in the core rules, it sets the standard - it *represents *the holy warriors, and, until something else comes along to meet the more specific needs of the people, that means it represents all of the holy warriors. Not just yours or mine. all of them. 


Now then, even if you told me that the paladins didn't have to be LG, but must be *either* Lawful *or* Good, that would speak volumes and expand what you can do with the class - instead of 1 way of being a paladin, Now you have 5, and you can play with what it means to have different codes of conduct, and even be able to make alternative ones for those alignments in the long run as you introduce archetypes, and all of this can make sense intuitively.

 In Pathfinder1, the design philosophy I perceived for most class/race options as the game evolved was "let's do anything and everything we could get away with." Except for the paladin, who remained very conservative to it's core concept (with archetypes being "different shapes of sprinkles" that, if they made any change to the code of conduct, were merely "more rules to follow", and not "different rules to follow"). 

(EDIT: If you think about it, the same company that's trying to sell you *goblins* as a new core player race, can't conceive the thought of the paladin acting any different than their hard and fast personality limitations demand you to. And if you adhere to those taboos, the deity you choose gives you even more limitations. It's a step forward but also a slap in the face. All the Different paladins will have to obey these universal laws of the same code of conduct. That is simply absurd.) 

Why do other classes get expanded roles and broader applications (i.e. rogue, alchemist) when paladins only get stricter and narrower? Even if they have a deity to customize them, they dress the anathema on top of their "1 size fits all" restrictions. I'm sorry, but I just don't think that's an intelligent way for paizo to go about it. It's a step Backwards more than anything else.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 9, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> The Paladin Code is a rather bizarre mutant form of Consequentialism, whose primary goal is even stated to be avoiding complex ethical conundruma. Seems very un-Paladin.



I think you put your finger on it. The code is presented as a rational, logical construct, where the archetype of the paladin is high romance. It makes the paladin out to be Spock, coolly calculating the right thing to do in case of a dilemma. Instead they should be Kirk, finding or _making_ a third option through their heroic will.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> Though it really makes me want to put them in a scenario where they have to choose between lawful, and good.  Like telling them to execute a prisoner they know to be innocent, but was found guilty under the law.



How is it lawful to punish someone who didn't commit a crime?


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## Kor (May 9, 2018)

Pokelefi said:


> I was interested in Pathfinder second edition at first.
> But for someone how is still new to table top and pen and paper rpgs this still seams very complex




I really don't really understand who the target audience is for Pathfinder 2nd.  Originally I was hoping they were just doing their Paizo-ized version of 5th Edition rules -- something which would have been great, especially given the poor WotC product support the line suffers from. 

I enjoyed 3.5/Pathfinder for a long time, but once D&D 5th edition was introduced, I found myself jumping ship to that system.  The 3.5/Pathfinder rules just added so many layers of complexity that sometimes it made it hard to introduce new players and also made high level play very monotonous.  I do understand the allure of this older system to many players though, and the huge amount of sourcebooks for that system is a great selling feature for playing it.  

Pathfinder 2 is just introducing yet another rule system full of complexities -- albeit different complexities.  I'm sure there will be some people who will to move on from their old complex system to a new complex system, but it just feels like Paizo is now splitting its existing customer base (which is slowly dwindling) into 2 different product lines.  They certainly will not be pulling in any of the 5th edition fans -- they'll be sticking with the streamlined quick and easy to play system of 5th edition.

I'm still holding out hope that some day Paizo will bring 5th edition to Golarion -- but with all their time and energy being focused on Starfinder and Pathfinder 2, I have to say that its not looking too likely.  Paizo definitely has proven their skill at understanding who their target market is -- so while I may not understand this direction that Pathfinder 2 is taking, they are the experts and they likely wouldn't be pursuing the new product line if they weren't certain that it would be a success.  (Heck, I thought introducing Starfinder with the old 3.5/Pathfinder ruleset was a bad idea, however it seems to be selling perfectly well, so I wish them all the best with PF2.)


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## Yaarel (May 9, 2018)

The ‘knight’ needs to be a base class.

• The paladin (white knight) is a cleric half-caster subclass.
• The black knight is a necromancer half-caster subclass.
• The green knight is a druid half-caster subclass
• The eldritch knight (red knight?) is a wizard half-caster subclass.
• The cavalier is a non-caster ‘champion’ warrior subclass.
• The warlord is a non-caster tactician and morale subclass.

And there are other knightly concepts that need this base class for its chassis too, such as a roguish scoundrel knight.



What all these ‘knight’ archetypes have in common is:
• heavy armor
• formal military training
• urban, elite
• competence in mounted combat (but downplay it)
• leadership training
• charisma: charm, dread, inspiration, morale
• intelligence: clever combat tactics, teamwork



The knight is a central archetype. The paladin is only one component within a comprehensive knightly class.


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## Yaarel (May 9, 2018)

Really, for the core rules, the only armors should be:

• *fabric* (padded gambeson, or heavy leather jacket)
• *leather* (boiled hard leather as lamellar tunic or solid cuirass)
• *chain* (tunic)
• *scale* (as ‘fish scale’ tunic, solid brigandine cuirass, banded segmentata, or reallife plate+mail being small metal strips linked to each other by metal rings)
• *plate* (cuirass)

Distinguish between torso armor only versus a full ‘suit’ that covers limbs as well.

All other kinds of armor should be on a separate list as variant options.



Make a naked person have 8 AC. 

Then make a helmet add +2 AC for a base 10 AC.

So it is always useful to have a helmet in combat, and an armorless head is vulnerable.



Remove silly armor types, like ‘studded leather’. In reallife this is   ‘brigandine’ armor, and is a specific kind of metal scale armor. Also remove  ring armor (this  is chain).



I like how D&D 3e makes wearing the torso armor alone, one weight category lighter, so a chain tunic is light armor, and a plate cuirass (breastplate) is medium armor. I hope PF2 does too.

Chain tunic and plate cuirass are iconic, so they deserve being mechanically better by being effective while also being lighter.


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## Jhaelen (May 9, 2018)

Yuck! That must be the preview I like the least, so far. I'm slowly getting the impression they're trying to turn Pathfinder into GURPS. 
And please, let go of stupid alignment restrictions! Someone's apparently stuck in the seventies.


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## pemerton (May 9, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> How is it lawful to punish someone who didn't commit a crime?



In the contemporary US legal system (and not only that system), if someone is factually innocent (ie didn't commit a crime) but has been duly convicted and sentenced, then carrying out that sentence is lawful. I imagine this is the sort of scenario that [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION] has in mind.


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## Aldarc (May 9, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> I’m a bit disappointed too.  Not at any one poster for their opinion on Paladins, but that so many are being myopic about Paizo’s supposed intentions with the class when they clearly told folks up front in the blog post exactly why the classic Paladin was in the play test and it wouldn’t be the only option in the final game.
> 
> I’d hoped for better in folks, oh well



But it is still alignment-oriented. That is my core issue, and that will not change with more options; that only exacerbates them.


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## MoonSong (May 9, 2018)

Zansy said:


> okay, first of all you _are_ putting words in my mouth.



That is why I said I was sorry u_u



> What makes your super-narrow definition for paladin more legitimate than my more broadly applicable one? What makes you think all those "necessary tropes", which include among them being a stick in the mud, or "the party babysitter", a _positive thing? _
> 
> You are definining the paladin as you think it should be, and make the distinction between a holy warrior and a paladin. Now, I'm not a historian or anything, but I think that's a misleading distinction.
> 
> ...




If you ask a ton of random people what a paladin is, nine out of ten won't even bring out the holy part, let alone they being religious champions. We don't need to change the paladin, we need another class that represents holy knights/warriors, one that tries to do both would do both a disservice.


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## Pokelefi (May 9, 2018)

Kor said:


> I really don't really understand who the target audience is for Pathfinder 2nd.  Originally I was hoping they were just doing their Paizo-ized version of 5th Edition rules -- something which would have been great, especially given the poor WotC product support the line suffers from.




Well I'm not sure I think the are trying to keep there old audience and make them transition this is there reason why they seam to focus a lot on player options the things people always point out when campaign 5e to Pathfinder 1

But more choices often means choice paralysis for new or unexpired players. this would be fine if every choice was equally more or less good to take, but this is never the case if there are many options a new play would pic but would make him much weaker then the rest of the group... (this is a problem I often here or read very time I consider trying out pathfinder this scares me of I don't want to be punished for not full knowing the ins and outs to the point of  kill the fun for the other players and me)



Kor said:


> Pathfinder 2 is just introducing yet another rule system full of complexities -- albeit different complexities. I'm sure there will be some people who will to move on from their old complex system to a new complex system, but it just feels like Paizo is now splitting its existing customer base (which is slowly dwindling) into 2 different product lines. They certainly will not be pulling in any of the 5th edition fans -- they'll be sticking with the streamlined quick and easy to play system of 5th edition.




Most likely I will stick with 5e even if I like trying out difference systems (one a mother there is an rpg club/meet up in my town were there are one shot from different games are offered) even if I hoped the new edition would be a gate way into the pathfinder but the more I read the more I see the things that scared away me of pathfinder 1e  



Kor said:


> I'm still holding out hope that some day Paizo will bring 5th edition to Golarion -- but with all their time and energy being focused on Starfinder and Pathfinder 2, I have to say that its not looking too likely. Paizo definitely has proven their skill at understanding who their target market is -- so while I may not understand this direction that Pathfinder 2 is taking, they are the experts and they likely wouldn't be pursuing the new product line if they weren't certain that it would be a success. (Heck, I thought introducing Starfinder with the old 3.5/Pathfinder ruleset was a bad idea, however it seems to be selling perfectly well, so I wish them all the best with PF2.)




The setting? If so that should be possible a setting should not be tied to the rules system ( even the guys from Kobold press mention this in there Guide to world building book) I would appreciate a rule free or rule low source book about the setting and its history with a 5e players guide in the way I like the midgard setting players handbook for 5e (still need to get the hard covers of it and both pdf and hard cover of the world guide dammed oversees shipping fee)


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## Kobold Boots (May 9, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> But it is still alignment-oriented. That is my core issue, and that will not change with more options; that only exacerbates them.




More correctly, the version of the Paladin being play tested is alignment oriented.  That does not mean that future types published have to be.


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## Kobold Boots (May 9, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> If you ask a ton of random people what a paladin is, nine out of ten won't even bring out the holy part, let alone they being religious champions. We don't need to change the paladin, we need another class that represents holy knights/warriors, one that tries to do both would do both a disservice.




I’m with you Song, but classically, the Paladin features are a snap on to a knight foundation, differentiated by their alignment.  Knights have a code of honor/chivalry but the Paladin also has the church which adds the lawful good requirement.  It’s only because the game has a polytheistic bent and socially accepts churches of other alignments that the broad interpretation of paladins can exist.

Personally, I’d call them something else that evokes imagery appropriate to their faith.


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## Pokelefi (May 9, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> More correctly, the version of the Paladin being play tested is alignment oriented.  That does not mean that future types published have to be.




I think he mean that one or several versions of the paladin are alignment looked or do you think they will make a exact duplicate of that paladin option that is just with out the alignment restriction? And if they drop it why have it in the first place?


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## Aldarc (May 9, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> More correctly, the version of the Paladin being play tested is alignment oriented.  That does not mean that future types published have to be.



It doesn't have to be, but I don't see this as something that Paizo will concede on. In general, I wish that Paizo would throw away all class-alignment restrictions.


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## Kobold Boots (May 9, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It doesn't have to be, but I don't see this as something that Paizo will concede on. In general, I wish that Paizo would throw away all class-alignment restrictions.




Fair.  I've had some of that thought process too.  Depending on the game I either throw them out completely or use alignment as a strength.  I've found that the composition of the group has a lot to do with which way I go.  If I need to run a game with a strong monotheist bent due to the players, then alignment is really important.  If I've got a group where religion isn't a big part of their lives, then it goes away.

I'd rather have it in the core rules than out.  I can always remove it without too much issue but if it's not supported in the first place then I have to create something.


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## Kobold Boots (May 9, 2018)

Pokelefi said:


> I think he mean that one or several versions of the paladin are alignment looked or do you think they will make a exact duplicate of that paladin option that is just with out the alignment restriction? And if they drop it why have it in the first place?




I'm thinking one step further on this because as stated in a previous post, I've had to run games with a lot of different folks with a lot of different world views.  

Question: Why not have paladins of different alignments?  Wouldn't gods of different domains and faiths have champions too?
Answer: Yes.

Where this falls down is that a champion of one faith would look nothing like the champion of another simply based on domain and alignment.  At the point where you start modeling those differences, those champions start looking a lot like other classes, and it calls into question why you'd duplicate them.

Ex. Champion of a nature domain - Looks a lot like a ranger.  Why isn't it just a ranger and be done with it?
Ex. Champion of a trickery domain - Looks a lot like a bard or rogue.  Why isn't it just a bard or rogue and be done with it?
Ex. Champion of a law domain - Looks a lot like a paladin maybe that's a fit.
Ex. Champion of a chaos domain - In terms of ability structure, looks a lot like a sorcerer.  

Anyway, I'm in favor of lawful good paladins based on the classical interpretation of the role.  I'm not in favor of paladins of other alignments and domains looking like classical paladins with a domain change.  Since this really is the crux of the problem, trying to make a classical concept more broad - you can see why the classic version is the only one in the playtest.

I wouldn't be surprised if given the crunchy nature of PF, Paizo has had this same discussion internally and needs to figure out what a "paladin" really looks like for other faiths.  It's part of the reason why I'm not concerned about this.  The other part is, that this is a game, and I can easily change whatever it is I don't want if it's not up to par for me.


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## MechaTarrasque (May 9, 2018)

I lurk on the Paizo forums, and one of the things I enjoy is when the devs respond to posts on the forums (especially because it almost always goes something like this:  Poster A-we need a dev to clarify this issue.  Dev B-feature Y is built to do X.  Poster A-you are totally wrong; who asked you anyway?).  Alignment questions get asked and the devs generally defend it (I can't think of a case where they didn't, but maybe someone else can).  My impression is that they lean more towards law being important for paladins (because they are disciplined enough to stick to an oath) more so than good.  I think they could end with paladins being lawful and having anti-paladins being conceptually more like the 5e oath breaker paladins.

Most of the stories D&D and Pathfinder draw from are morality tales, entertaining yes, but still morality tales (yes, that includes Conan, where the moral is "don't trust those slick big city types").  Many classes have a virtue at their core (although not necessarily a classic virtue).  For paladins, I think the virtue is "duty."  I have never DM'd a paladin fall in any system (fair amount of paladins getting severely chastised by angels when they acted like murderhobos, but no falling....), so I am indifferent to that part of the debate, but it seems to me that anything that moves the paladin away from something that represents duty is design failure.


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> If you ask a ton of random people what a paladin is, nine out of ten won't even bring out the holy part, let alone they being religious champions. We don't need to change the paladin, we need another class that represents holy knights/warriors, one that tries to do both would do both a disservice.



If not the holy part or religious champion... what makes a paladin different from a fighter?

I mean, you could just add an oath option to the fighter...
Paladin's Oath: (Prerequisit fighter, Lawful Good), you swear an oath to uphold the good and righteous, and you gain a +X bonus.  If you ever perform an evil act, you lose this bonus.

Edit: that actually makes it more historically accurate as well.


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## Charlaquin (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> If not the holy part or religious champion... what makes a paladin different from a fighter?
> 
> I mean, you could just add an oath option to the fighter...
> Paladin's Oath: (Prerequisit fighter, Lawful Good), you swear an oath to uphold the good and righteous, and you gain a +X bonus.  If you ever perform an evil act, you lose this bonus.
> ...



I think most people would agree that what makes a Paladin a Paladin is their adherence to an ideal. To some people, that ideal is the moral philosophy of Law and Good. To others, that ideal is the word of the god/gods the Paladin follows. To others, it’s a code of conduct, divorced from a particular alignment or deity. That’s part of why they’re so controversial as a class. They are defined by strict adherence to _something_, but everyone has different ideas about what that something ought to be, and a Paladin who strictly adhered to one person’s something is necessarily not adhering as strictly as they could be to another.


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I think most people would agree that what makes a Paladin a Paladin is their adherence to an ideal. To some people, that ideal is the moral philosophy of Law and Good. To others, that ideal is the word of the god/gods the Paladin follows. To others, it’s a code of conduct, divorced from a particular alignment or deity. That’s part of why they’re so controversial as a class. They are defined by strict adherence to _something_, but everyone has different ideas about what that something ought to be, and a Paladin who strictly adhered to one person’s something is necessarily not adhering as strictly as they could be to another.



That still doesn't answer the question.

What makes a paladin different from just a fighter who swearth an oath to some ideal/god/code/ect...
Also, why can't a wizards, rogues, or bard swear the same oath?


IMO, just make all the oaths into feats.  Let anyone take them.

Oath of the Paladin: Lawful Good
Oath of the Blackguard: Chaotic Evil
Oath of the Bushido: Lawful Neutral
Oath of the Pacifist: Neutral Good
Oath of Nocticula: Chaotic Neutral
ect...


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## TheCosmicKid (May 9, 2018)

pemerton said:


> In the contemporary US legal system (and not only that system), if someone is factually innocent (ie didn't commit a crime) but has been duly convicted and sentenced, then carrying out that sentence is lawful. I imagine this is the sort of scenario that @_*mellored*_ has in mind.



"Lawful" means something quite different in English-language legal parlance than it does in D&D. It may _not be a crime_ to carry out the sentence*, but is it _in accordance with the ideals on which the law rests and the purposes it serves_? I think not. The whole scenario is predicated on a failure of the law to accurately determine guilt and innocence. A person sworn to uphold the law, whether an American lawyer or a Waterdhavian paladin, surely ought to do everything in their power to correct the error, not perpetuate it.

*And if, e.g., a prosecutor has evidence establishing that a defendant is innocent but withholds the evidence and prosecutes them anyway, then of course that _is_ a crime.


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> "Lawful" means something quite different in English-language legal parlance than it does in D&D. It may _not be a crime_ to carry out the sentence*, but is it _in accordance with the ideals on which the law rests and the purposes it serves_? I think not. The whole scenario is predicated on a failure of the law to accurately determine guilt and innocence. A person sworn to uphold the law, whether an American lawyer or a Waterdhavian paladin, surely ought to do everything in their power to correct the error, not perpetuate it.
> 
> *And if, e.g., a prosecutor has evidence establishing that a defendant is innocent but withholds the evidence and prosecutes them anyway, then of course that _is_ a crime.



I'll throw you a different scenario then.

The law states that anyone who enters's the queen's bath area uninvited will be beheaded.
Some orphan throws his ball over a fence and climbs over the fence to get it, unknowingly entering into the queen's bath area.  The paladin on guard catches that kid.

Does the paladin kill the orphan or not?


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## TheCosmicKid (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> I'll throw you a different scenario then.
> 
> The law states that anyone who enters's the queen's bath area uninvited will be beheaded.
> Some orphan throws his ball over a fence and climbs over the fence to get it, unknowingly entering into the queen's bath area.  The paladin on guard catches that kid.
> ...



The paladin sees the loophole and invites the kid to retrieve his ball, then lets him leave. They then go to the queen and say, "Your majesty, something terrible almost happened today. Let's fix this law."


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## mellored (May 9, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> The paladin sees the loophole and invites the kid to retrieve his ball, then lets him leave. They then go to the queen and say, "Your majesty, something terrible almost happened today. Let's fix this law."



Too bad Int is a dump stat for paladins.


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## Zansy (May 9, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I think most people would agree that what makes a Paladin a Paladin is their adherence to an ideal. To some people, that ideal is the moral philosophy of Law and Good. To others, that ideal is the word of the god/gods the Paladin follows. To others, it’s a code of conduct, divorced from a particular alignment or deity. That’s part of why they’re so controversial as a class. They are defined by strict adherence to _something_, but everyone has different ideas about what that something ought to be, and a Paladin who strictly adhered to one person’s something is necessarily not adhering as strictly as they could be to another.




A sound, relatively objective observation. I would like to expand on that, as I think that the *amount* of different things a paladin must adhere to is also under controversy. For example, I think that the paladin adhering to his alignment, his deity's philosophies, his deity's anathema, and a universal code of conduct on top of it all, with only the deity being somewhat of a choice - is overkill and unstable when one error while consulting your (basically paizo's-) apparently universal judgment could cost you your class features. 

(EDIT: another controversial point waiting to happen: how do you prioritize those different categories of restrictions? In the event of hypothetical conflict, Is the code of conduct more or less important than your deity's anathema? And to what extent? ) 

 The current paladin prioritizes good over law, but I think you should be able to make more choices of what's the most important to your own order of paladins, like have the right to rank your code of conduct for yourself (but must stay consistent to your own hierarchy), or have the option(heck - even an optional rule!) to deviate from at least one of these restrictions (alignment/deity/CoC) without being judged as "not a paladin". 

That being said, some others here prefer that the paladin had more things to commit to, some people thrive creatively on limitation, though I really don't see why that template of limitations couldn't fit within a bigger net of options.

Finally, to say that ALL paladins adhere to this code of conduct, (or even all LG paladins do) in that very order of priorities is naive and absurd. Even if you *are* restricted to being Lawful and good, even if it is "just for the playtest", there are some people who are Lawful first and Good second, and not just vice versa ("GL" ) which is what this code of conduct is geared at. Paizo's hierarchy of tenets is for GL paladins, which is even more specific than your normal Lawful good because it's specifically the belief that good always trumps law. To paizo's credit, they're on to something when they say that some tenets can be more important than others, but what do they care so much about how my specific paladin at the table prioritizes those rules? 

our GL paladins follow their given alignment. CoC dictates our biggest priorities are so and so, in this order, uniformly, unfailingly, and universally, as paladins. Our deities tell us even more things we must never, ever do. One false move on any of these fronts will cost these paladins _big_. Even if the designers are trying to avoid moral dilemmas that ruin the Paladin's day, the misjudgments of their efforts will likely result in them making it exceptionally difficult for themselves, and for everyone else to adhere to all of it, and all the easier to put together new or additional moral dilemmas that conflict between those types of restrictions. the more limitations they put in, that stack on each other like crude patchwork, the more holes consumers are bound to find within it. Players and GMs alike are going to find the holes in that complex patchwork of paladin rules, and strike the chink in the paladins' Legendary armor where it hurts them most.


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## Charlaquin (May 9, 2018)

mellored said:


> That still doesn't answer the question.
> 
> What makes a paladin different from just a fighter who swearth an oath to some ideal/god/code/ect...
> Also, why can't a wizards, rogues, or bard swear the same oath?
> ...



Sure, that’d be cool. But I think what you’re getting at here is less an issue with the Paladin specifically and more an issue of class design philosophy. You could also ask what makes a ranger different from a fighter who trains in survival skills, or what makes a gunslinger different from a fighter who uses guns. Until D&D/Pathfinder makes a decision about what constitutes a class, these cases are going to keep popping up where one class that is very narrowly defined fits with the archetype of another class that’s very broadly defined. I’d be all for a D&D with a few broad classes and a lot of specific options to refine them, like your suggestion here. Unfortunately, I think it’s too far afield of what has grown to be D&D’s brand identity. 4e failed because it didn’t “feel like D&D. A lot of the complaints about the PF2 previews revolve around it not “feeling like Pathfinder.”


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## Flexor the Mighty! (May 9, 2018)

Zansy said:


> On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.
> 
> once again -
> 1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.




Amen.  I never understood the POV that Paladins are bound by this tight code since they are so devout, but the Priests who channel the deities power to do miracles has a lot more leeway.   Personally I like the LG only Paladin, I just never understood why the clerics were viewed as halfassed faith-wise by comparison.


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## Zansy (May 9, 2018)

Flexor the Mighty! said:


> Amen.  I never understood the POV that Paladins are bound by this tight code since they are so devout, but the Priests who channel the deities power to do miracles has a lot more leeway.   Personally I like the LG only Paladin, I just never understood why the clerics were viewed as halfassed faith-wise by comparison.




Even if it was unintentionally so, and even if you're not against the paladin being exclusively LG, I thank you for illustrating my point in my previous post, that I'm not the only one with controversy over how many different things a paladin must adhere to with full devotion. Having you Compare it to my earlier point about clerics following less rules than paladins not only strengthens that point, but shows me that I'm consistent with my opinions on the matter. Thank you.


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## pemerton (May 10, 2018)

If the paladin in the game is meant to emulate the archetype found in idealised and romanticised histories and stories of knighthood, then certain contemporary ideals and practices need to be excluded.

For instance, issues of efficiency and expedience are very important in most contemporary contexts. And practices or requirements that are pointless tend to be rejected or reformed. But this is not consistent with the ideals of paladinhood. Honour, thruthfulness and forthrightness are paladin ideals, not expedience. (I therefore think it's a mistake to take the prohibition on poison use out of a paldin's code. Poisons are expedient, but dishonourable.)

Likewise I don't think paladins are law-reformers. The whole idea of law reform is a contemporary one. A paladin who thinks that a purported legal requirement is abhorrent or unjust is going to try and show that _it is not really a legal requirement_. Or if the concern is that applying the law in this particular instance would be unjust, the paladin will present an argument as to _why it ought not to be applied._

In LotR, Aragorn remits the death penalty against Beregond for valour, and because he acted out of love - and the sentence of exile is also the bestowal of an honourable office newly created.

In [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION]'s example of the orphan who inadvertantly enters the forbidden area of the palace, the paladin might take the child before the queen and seek (or even just expect) mercy to be granted. Depending on the tone of the game, maybe mercy is granted by way of the child instead being ordered to enter the queen's service. (Again, depending on tone, if the orphan is a boy this might mean entering the queen's servicd as a eunuch.) Or, if the paladin has authority to enter the forbidden area, maybe the paladin facilitates the grant of mercy by taking the child into his/her service - thus rendering the child no longer a forbidden person.

I think honouring the law - which includes treating the law in a way that renders it worthy of being honoured - is in keeping with a conception of paladinhood in a way that wriggling through loopholes and reforming the law is not.


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2018)

pemerton said:


> If the paladin in the game is meant to emulate the archetype found in idealised and romanticised histories and stories of knighthood, then certain contemporary ideals and practices need to be excluded.
> 
> For instance, issues of efficiency and expedience are very important in most contemporary contexts. And practices or requirements that are pointless tend to be rejected or reformed. But this is not consistent with the ideals of paladinhood. Honour, thruthfulness and forthrightness are paladin ideals, not expedience. (I therefore think it's a mistake to take the prohibition on poison use out of a paldin's code. Poisons are expedient, but dishonourable.)
> 
> ...




Isn't that sort of adding insult to injury, not only must paladins be LG, but they must also be rules-lawyers as well?


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## pemerton (May 10, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Isn't that sort of adding insult to injury, not only must paladins be LG, but they must also be rules-lawyers as well?



I'm going to risk internet idiocy and take this literally when maybe it's a joke!

I think searching for loopholes is "rules-lawyering". I think identifying the spirit of the law, the _thing about it_ that makes it important and worth respecting - in otherwords, _finding its goodness_ - is what romanticised knightly Aragorn-esque lawful good is all about.


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## Ancalagon (May 10, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> Why not have the cake and eat it too? Why not have two classes, one your purported crusader tailor made to support hundreds of snowflake holy warriors that fit one super specific domain/deity each and one single paladin class that embodies the paladin with all trapping (Lawful Good only, code of conduct, one evil act and you fall perhaps forever) ?



In 5e, the solution would be having a divine subclass to the fighter, a bit like the eldrich knight.


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## Ancalagon (May 10, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Really, for the core rules, the only armors should be:
> 
> • *fabric* (padded gambeson, or heavy leather jacket)
> • *leather* (boiled hard leather as lamellar tunic or solid cuirass)
> ...



I agree that a number of the armors are wrong. And a good gambeson could provide very good protection. 

However, I believe that there was ring armor....


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## MechaTarrasque (May 10, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Isn't that sort of adding insult to injury, not only must paladins be LG, but they must also be rules-lawyers as well?




Due to his/her paladinhood (and high charisma), the universe (and law) will automatically bend to make the paladin always right.   It is like you have never watched a single episode of the 1966 Batman TV series (binge watching it is clearly a requirement for anyone who wants to play a paladin, DM a paladin, or be in a party with one).


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2018)

MechaTarrasque said:


> Due to his/her paladinhood (and high charisma), the universe (and law) will automatically bend to make the paladin always right.   It is like you have never watched a single episode of the 1966 Batman TV series (binge watching it is clearly a requirement for anyone who wants to play a paladin, DM a paladin, or be in a party with one).




This really doesn't help with the fact that I've played 2/4 of my paladins like Adam West.


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## Gammadoodler (May 10, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> "Lawful" means something quite different in English-language legal parlance than it does in D&D. It may _not be a crime_ to carry out the sentence*, but is it _in accordance with the ideals on which the law rests and the purposes it serves_? I think not. The whole scenario is predicated on a failure of the law to accurately determine guilt and innocence. A person sworn to uphold the law, whether an American lawyer or a Waterdhavian paladin, surely ought to do everything in their power to correct the error, not perpetuate it.
> 
> *And if, e.g., a prosecutor has evidence establishing that a defendant is innocent but withholds the evidence and prosecutes them anyway, then of course that _is_ a crime.




I think I'd disagree with your contention that "lawful" means differing things in these differing contexts. Laws have, after all, existed for a very long time in human history (we have recorded laws from ancient Babylon) and have consistently been created, recorded and enforced for the same reasons, to define a set of acceptable behaviors for society. Presumably, the creators of those laws believe that, by forming this structure (whatever it is), they are improving society at large by outlawing 'bad' behavior. Even in a D&D world, it seems unlikely that laws would exist for any other reason. By extension, it seems that "lawfulness" would entail a respect for the benefits to society of adherence to those laws and the need for punishment of infractions of those laws. 

There is nothing inconsistent with Mellored's example. A "lawful" character can very reasonably conclude that the value of the message to society that "those found guilty will be punished" outweighs damage done by inappropriate punishment of the innocent. 

Your additional argument seems to include an assumption that the laws include 'justice' as an ideal upon which they rest and/or purpose which they serve. This is hardly a safe assumption. Slavery has been legal in a greater part of human history than it's been illegal. Womens' suffrage is only barely 100 years old in some of the earliest adopting countries. And this is 'real life' in 'modern' culture. Is there any argument that these laws had a justifiable underlying ideal or purpose? Is there any reason to believe that similarly abusive laws wouldn't exist in pseudo-medieval D&D fantasyland? 

(Note: all of this ignores the many differing and conflicting ways in which 'good' can be interpreted)


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## Yaarel (May 10, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I agree that a number of the armors are wrong. And a good gambeson could provide very good protection.
> 
> However, I believe that there was ring armor....




The socalled ‘ring armor’ is inferior scale armor, made in a location where metal is scarce.


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## Ancalagon (May 10, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The socalled ‘ring armor’ is inferior scale armor, made in a location where metal is scarce.



And shouldn't there be a place in the rules for inferior armor?


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## MoonSong (May 10, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> I’m with you Song, but classically, the Paladin features are a snap on to a knight foundation, differentiated by their alignment.  Knights have a code of honor/chivalry but the Paladin also has the church which adds the lawful good requirement.  It’s only because the game has a polytheistic bent and socially accepts churches of other alignments that the broad interpretation of paladins can exist.
> 
> Personally, I’d call them something else that evokes imagery appropriate to their faith.




I think it is less about devotion and more about virtue.  




mellored said:


> If not the holy part or religious champion... what makes a paladin different from a fighter?
> 
> I mean, you could just add an oath option to the fighter...
> Paladin's Oath: (Prerequisit fighter, Lawful Good), you swear an oath to uphold the good and righteous, and you gain a +X bonus.  If you ever perform an evil act, you lose this bonus.
> ...






mellored said:


> That still doesn't answer the question.
> 
> What makes a paladin different from just a fighter who swearth an oath to some ideal/god/code/ect...
> Also, why can't a wizards, rogues, or bard swear the same oath?
> ...




Virtue, conviction to do good and keep order. A paladin is both optimistic and idealistic, virtuous and uncompromising. Save everybody even if it is impossible. Be a champion of good and justice. Between Rolando and El Cid there's a world of difference. El Cid was pragmatic, and cynical. He would never be what you call a paladin, even if he himself was considered a defender of the faith. Deities are orthogonal to paladins, some paladins will be defenders of faith, but only the faith of the lawful good gods. Evil and chaotic deities will have their own holy champions, but they won't be paladins, because a paladin is always striving for  the greater good without compromising the order that makes life bearable. Rescue and save everybody so they can live, not just survive.  

A fighter is someone who fights...



Zansy said:


> A sound, relatively objective observation. I would like to expand on that, as I think that the *amount* of different things a paladin must adhere to is also under controversy. For example, I think that the paladin adhering to his alignment, his deity's philosophies, his deity's anathema, and a universal code of conduct on top of it all, with only the deity being somewhat of a choice - is overkill and unstable when one error while consulting your (basically paizo's-) apparently universal judgment could cost you your class features.
> 
> (EDIT: another controversial point waiting to happen: how do you prioritize those different categories of restrictions? In the event of hypothetical conflict, Is the code of conduct more or less important than your deity's anathema? And to what extent? )
> 
> ...




I don't know, a paladin that compromises good doesn't sound like a paladin. But you are right, paladins shouldn't have to be shackled by so many burdens, which is why I don't think they should serve deities at all. (I blame the Realms for that one actually)



Flexor the Mighty! said:


> Amen.  I never understood the POV that Paladins are bound by this tight code since they are so devout, but the Priests who channel the deities power to do miracles has a lot more leeway.   Personally I like the LG only Paladin, I just never understood why the clerics were viewed as halfassed faith-wise by comparison.




Because paladins are empowered by Good itself, not a capricious deity.



Zansy said:


> Even if it was unintentionally so, and even if you're not against the paladin being exclusively LG, I thank you for illustrating my point in my previous post, that I'm not the only one with controversy over how many different things a paladin must adhere to with full devotion. Having you Compare it to my earlier point about clerics following less rules than paladins not only strengthens that point, but shows me that I'm consistent with my opinions on the matter. Thank you.




Like I said, this sounds more like a point in favor of a split than one against it. All it proves is that a single class is too little design space to cover both the LG Paladin and the Divine Champion of any random deity. 



Gammadoodler said:


> There is nothing inconsistent with Mellored's example. A "lawful" character can very reasonably conclude that the value of the message to society that "those found guilty will be punished" outweighs damage done by inappropriate punishment of the innocent.




Even if you don't care about justice, a purely lawful person wouldn't want to punish someone who didn't break the law and was convicted wrongly. Of course you might want to just be done with it and send a message, but that would be shortsighted. Execute enough people wrongly convicted and the people will stop having the incentives to follow the law. If someone who did nothing wrong doesn't benefit from the law, then there is no point in following the law. That is how revolts and revolutions are started.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (May 10, 2018)

Why wouldn't a capricious deity have tight behavior codes?


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## Gammadoodler (May 10, 2018)

pemerton said:


> If the paladin in the game is meant to emulate the archetype found in idealised and romanticised histories and stories of knighthood, then certain contemporary ideals and practices need to be excluded.
> 
> For instance, issues of efficiency and expedience are very important in most contemporary contexts. And practices or requirements that are pointless tend to be rejected or reformed. But this is not consistent with the ideals of paladinhood. Honour, thruthfulness and forthrightness are paladin ideals, not expedience. (I therefore think it's a mistake to take the prohibition on poison use out of a paldin's code. Poisons are expedient, but dishonourable.)
> 
> ...




Honestly uncertain what all you're advocating since there have been a few different threads. Are you saying that a paladin _should_ represent the romantic noble knight? Are you saying that the "romantic noble knight" would have a lawful good alignment? You start your post with "if" so it's hard to say whether that is something you'd agree with.

As it relates to the interactions of paladins (presumably LG romantic noble knights) with the law, there are a couple of issues with the points you bring up.

1. Law reform as a contemporary idea, how contemporary? The Magna Carta was signed in the 13th century as a way to make peace between the crown and various nobles by establishing certain legal protections for the nobility and limitations on the power of the crown. Not sure how contemporary we're willing to consider the 13th century. Those nobles probably aren't equivalent to "romantic noble knights", but some of them might not be that far off either.

2. Use of Aragorn as an example of "how a paladin deals with the law" is kinda silly for a couple reasons. First, Aragorn is a ranger, right? He has no real affiliation that I can recall with any particular god, and I feel like I remember Aragorn and the fellowship hiding and/or running away..like a lot. Second, and this is really more important..in the fiction, *he is the rightful king by blood, he wields the sword that was broken..yadda yadda yadda. *The great thing about being the king.._*you make the laws*._ Not really a lot of conflict for him there since he didn't really have anyone to answer to. If he did, we'd probably be calling him Chaotic Good. 

As it relates to possible scenarios for how a paladin might respond to @_*mellored*_'s revised conundrum, sure, those are all possible approaches, but they don't really address the question. If mercy isn't granted, and the orphan is sentenced to die by the paladin's hand, what does the paladin do? (BTW, if this kid did somehow wander in, my guess is that there are some guards that for sure need some discipline)

There are also other scenarios that don't even have a judicial component, just lawful orders with questionable moral value. For example: 

If a city has been plagued by a contagious incurable disease and the rulers determined that all those who have contracted the disease shall be quarantined/imprisoned/executed for the sake of the remaining healthy population. 

If a noble from a neighboring country offends the paladin's king (or high cleric or something) and the paladin is then commanded to attack and raze a village from that neighboring country.


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## CubicsRube (May 10, 2018)

This is a long thread so I'm sure it's been said, but the only reason the paladin has been confibed to LG in the past is tradition.

In earlier editions, you had to roll attributes in order and roll really well to just be able to play a paladin. It was the hardest class to get and it was objectively better. The LG requirement was meant to be a hindrance, a limiter. Now they are not as unbalanced a class, the redtriction makes no sense.

In any case, I'm sad to say the armor broke the PF2 camel's back for me. Here's how i enivsage PF2 combat going:

Tom, The ogre magr reaches out with a firey hand and strikes you!

Is that touch ac or regular ac? I have poor quality chainmail, so it's a 5 -2, but i have a +3 for my proficiency. And i used my shield. Thats fine quality. Do i get the bonus for that for touch ac? So its a +3? And i have the heavily armored feat that gives me +1. And i can add my dex bonus, so another +1. And then has that buff worn off? Oh ok. And my level of course, so 5. So my touch ac is 10+5-2+3+1+1+5 so ... ummm 23?

Ok that misses. Now sarah, the orc swings his axe at you!

Is that touch ac or ac...


Sorry all, I'm already running away screaming!


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## TheCosmicKid (May 10, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> I think I'd disagree with your contention that "lawful" means differing things in these differing contexts. Laws have, after all, existed for a very long time in human history (we have recorded laws from ancient Babylon) and have consistently been created, recorded and enforced for the same reasons, to define a set of acceptable behaviors for society. Presumably, the creators of those laws believe that, by forming this structure (whatever it is), they are improving society at large by outlawing 'bad' behavior. Even in a D&D world, it seems unlikely that laws would exist for any other reason. By extension, it seems that "lawfulness" would entail a respect for the benefits to society of adherence to those laws and the need for punishment of infractions of those laws.
> 
> There is nothing inconsistent with Mellored's example. A "lawful" character can very reasonably conclude that the value of the message to society that "those found guilty will be punished" outweighs damage done by inappropriate punishment of the innocent.



You're actually agreeing with me: the punishment of the innocent is inappropriate, and inflicts damage to the ideal of the law. Even an analysis which ultimately condones the action treats that aspect of it as a _negative_ which must be outweighed. _Per se_, it is not The Lawful Thing To Do.



Gammadoodler said:


> Your additional argument seems to include an assumption that the laws include 'justice' as an ideal upon which they rest and/or purpose which they serve. This is hardly a safe assumption. Slavery has been legal in a greater part of human history than it's been illegal. Womens' suffrage is only barely 100 years old in some of the earliest adopting countries. And this is 'real life' in 'modern' culture. Is there any argument that these laws had a justifiable underlying ideal or purpose?



Arguments for the justice of slavery are horrifying, but that is a far cry from saying that they do not exist -- they are in fact sickeningly common, from Aristotle to the American Civil War. You seem to be claiming that premodern law was unconcerned with the concept of "justice", and if you are, I can't agree with that at all. Going all the way back to Hammurabi, justice has absolutely been at the forefront of lawmakers' minds. However, premodern people, just like modern people, were also concerned with rationalizing all the terrible things they did in terms of such high-minded ideals.



Gammadoodler said:


> Is there any reason to believe that similarly abusive laws wouldn't exist in pseudo-medieval D&D fantasyland?



Of course not. We are, however, speaking of paladins.


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## Gammadoodler (May 10, 2018)

> Virtue, conviction to do good and keep order. A paladin is both optimistic and idealistic, virtuous and uncompromising. Save everybody even if it is impossible. Be a champion of good and justice. Between Rolando and El Cid there's a world of difference. El Cid was pragmatic, and cynical. He would never be what you call a paladin, even if he himself was considered a defender of the faith. Deities are orthogonal to paladins, some paladins will be defenders of faith, but only the faith of the lawful good gods. Evil and chaotic deities will have their own holy champions, but they won't be paladins, because a paladin is always striving for the greater good without compromising the order that makes life bearable. Rescue and save everybody so they can live, not just survive.
> 
> A fighter is someone who fights...




Two things here.. 
1. Are these attributes based on anything beside personal preference
2. If these attributes govern "what a paladin is", then you could logically have wizard paladins, rogue paladins, fighter paladins, etc. To be clear, not multiclassed characters, full-on paladins with wizard/rogue/fighter/etc. abilities. 



> Because paladins are empowered by Good itself, not a capricious deity.




2 things here..
1. "Good itself" sounds an awful lot like a deity, certainly from a mechanical perspective, but also from certain worldviews' perspectives
2. What exactly does "Good itself" look like? Is the paladin a pacifist who is not permitted to slay evildoers because "all life is precious"? Is the paladin an implacable force of divine enforcement where "evil must be punished at all costs"? 



> Like I said, this sounds more like a point in favor of a split than one against it. All it proves is that a single class is too little design space to cover both the LG Paladin and the Divine Champion of any random deity.




Not really. You're describing character, while others are describing mechanics. Nothing in the attributes you've described in your "preferred paladin" would fail to operate under the framework they've suggested. 



> Even if you don't care about justice, a purely lawful person wouldn't want to punish someone who didn't break the law and was convicted wrongly. Of course you might want to just be done with it and send a message, but that would be shortsighted. Execute enough people wrongly convicted and the people will stop having the incentives to follow the law. If someone who did nothing wrong doesn't benefit from the law, then there is no point in following the law. That is how revolts and revolutions are started.




Sure, but "didn't want to" and "won't" can be and often are worlds away from each other. And for the converse of your additional point. Failure to enforce the law removes the disincentives to disobedience. If someone who is convicted of a crime is not punished for it, why wouldn't other people commit the same crime? This path leads to anarchy. (To be clear, I'm not saying that these are the only possible conclusions, just that they are also reasonable ones for a "lawful" character to make)


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

> You're actually agreeing with me: the punishment of the innocent is inappropriate, and inflicts damage to the ideal of the law. Even an analysis which ultimately condones the action treats that aspect of it as a _negative which must be outweighed. Per se, it is not The Lawful Thing To Do._




I am agreeing that punishment of the innocent is a negative. I am disagreeing that it _must_ be outweighed. People make a lot of systems, basically all of them are imperfect, but we continue to use them because the net value of the system outweighs the imperfections. It is a reasonable to conclude that the reliability of the system to operate as described is of greater benefit than the correction of an individual known imperfection. 



> Arguments for the justice of slavery are horrifying, but that is a far cry from saying that they do not exist -- they are in fact sickeningly common, from Aristotle to the American Civil War. You seem to be claiming that premodern law was unconcerned with the concept of "justice", and if you are, I can't agree with that at all. Going all the way back to Hammurabi, justice has absolutely been at the forefront of lawmakers' minds. However, premodern people, just like modern people, were also concerned with rationalizing all the terrible things they did in terms of such high-minded ideals.




To be clear, I'm not saying that premodern lawmakers were unconcerned with justice, I am saying that it was not their sole concern, and, quite frequently, not even their primary concern.  So here, I think you're agreeing with me. To go further, it seems to me that justice is incidental to lawmaking. The primary effect of any kind of rule set that I've seen is to bring order to a situation/problem/etc. Justice is a means to preserving that order, but the goal is order. 



> Of course not. We are, however, speaking of paladins.




So the "lawful" paladin obeys those laws and fights for underlying ideals which may also be "horrifying"?


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## TheCosmicKid (May 11, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> To go further, it seems to me that justice is incidental to lawmaking. The primary effect of any kind of rule set that I've seen is to bring order to a situation/problem/etc. Justice is a means to preserving that order, but the goal is order.



What if the "problem" which the rule set is attempting to bring order to is "hey, there isn't enough justice in the world"?



Gammadoodler said:


> So the "lawful" paladin obeys those laws and fights for underlying ideals which may also be "horrifying"?



No, because "good".


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## Kobold Boots (May 11, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> I think it is less about devotion and more about virtue.




Where I come from (the land of gamers founded in the late 70s early 80s) Paladins were folks of great virtue who were called to becoming paladins and empowered by their deity to do great work.  Deities have churches and as such virtue and answering the call is a social pact that brings with it devotion.  There is no separation of virtue from devotion or you aren't a paladin.



> Virtue, conviction to do good and keep order. A paladin is both optimistic and idealistic, virtuous and uncompromising. Save everybody even if it is impossible. Be a champion of good and justice. Between Rolando and El Cid there's a world of difference. El Cid was pragmatic, and cynical. He would never be what you call a paladin, even if he himself was considered a defender of the faith. Deities are orthogonal to paladins, some paladins will be defenders of faith, but only the faith of the lawful good gods. Evil and chaotic deities will have their own holy champions, but they won't be paladins, because a paladin is always striving for  the greater good without compromising the order that makes life bearable. Rescue and save everybody so they can live, not just survive.




I agree with you take on how paladins act but they are not independent of their deities or they wouldn't "fall".  Additionally, at the point where the paladin answers the call of "good" you're personifying "good" or it wouldn't call or empower the paladin in the first place.  They are special because they are better in the eyes of some greater power.  Whether you actually call it a deity in your game or not is up to you, but if it shows favor, it's functionally a deity. 



> I don't know, a paladin that compromises good doesn't sound like a paladin. But you are right, paladins shouldn't have to be shackled by so many burdens, which is why I don't think they should serve deities at all. (I blame the Realms for that one actually)




I don't blame the realms.  I blame the first edition rules which stated that a paladin who fell needed to do penance to a lawful good cleric of seventh level or higher to get his status back.  The logic being that if you needed to go to a LG cleric who by definition must have a deity to gain his status (7th level) then the deity is the one restoring the status.

I do appreciate the realms though for clearly stating that not all paladins served deities directly with a line that said "those paladins that serve the gods".  Logic being there are those that do and those that don't.  Regardless, having to go to a leveled cleric, which was the case through second edition pretty much set the tone for the game system that the Realms followed.




> Because paladins are empowered by Good itself, not a capricious deity.




I'm down with the capricious deity theorem, save for the fact that not all deities are capricious any more than any mortal may be.  That's a matter for DM interpretation.



> Like I said, this sounds more like a point in favor of a split than one against it. All it proves is that a single class is too little design space to cover both the LG Paladin and the Divine Champion of any random deity.




I'll agree to disagree with you on this.


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> What if the "problem" which the rule set is attempting to bring order to is "hey, there isn't enough justice in the world"?




I guess we could argue it like the chicken and the egg. I feel there is ample evidence of unjust laws throughout history to suggest that it's not a wholly sensible argument, but I can concede the potential.



TheCosmicKid said:


> No, because "good".




And thus we come full circle where someone might try to design a conundrum for a character who is both "lawful" and "good" that forces them to compromise on one or the other of those attributes.
Unless what you've been trying to say all along is that "Lawful" = "Good", in which case we have engaged in a truly silly discussion.

(Ignoring that "good" can and has meant a lot of different and conflicting things to a lot of different people)


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## The Crimson Binome (May 11, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> I don't blame the realms.  I blame the first edition rules which stated that a paladin who fell needed to do penance to a lawful good cleric of seventh level or higher to get his status back.  The logic being that if you needed to go to a LG cleric who by definition must have a deity to gain his status (7th level) then the deity is the one restoring the status.



I blame the realms, and third edition, for establishing a default setting where there are multiple gods with different preferences and agendas which are all still good guys. Really, the concept of the knight-in-shining-armor that has been blessed with healing and demon-slaying powers makes less and less sense as you get further away from pseudo-historical Medieval European settings. 

Paladins get weird when you try to import them into settings where religion is complicated.


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## pemerton (May 11, 2018)

In my contributions to this thread I am not trying to argue for how Paizo should present their PF2 paladin class; nor for what is "the best" presentation of such a class in a RPG. Those are questions that have to be answered using knowledge about player preferences, market trends, etc, and I don't have that knowledge.

I am talking about the archetype of the paladin. D&D didn't invent this archetype; nor did Poul Anderson. (Though clearly he was influential on the particular way D&D first operationalised it.)

The archetype goes back to romantic, idealised conceptions of mediaeval knighthood, and of kingship. In well-known English-language writing, King Arthur stories are a "historical" illustration of this tradition; Tolkien's LotR gives us a "modern" illustration. To say that Aragorn is a ranger and hence irrrelevant (eg  [MENTION=6914290]Gammadoodler[/MENTION] upthread) is a mistake. Aragorn, as a character, clearly weaves together many strands of English/European storytelling: the noble who has to hid in the woods until he can reclaim his throne (as in some versions of Robin Hood); the human who has magical powers and foresight because he has dwelled in fairyland; the king who can heal with a touch; the heroic and chivalric battle captain (evoking Arthur, or romanticised versions of Richard the Lionheart) whose presence on the battlefield is worth many ordinary swords; and, perhaps most importantly, he understands the importance of hope (that's even his name!) and trust in providence.

This hope and trust means that the notion of a "no win" situation actually gets ruled out. The only way there can be "no win" is if the paladin's beliefs and ideals are themselves shown to be wrong - ie if it is shown, in fact, that there ultimately _is no justice in the world_. The humility that is part of this hope and trust is also important - and is part of the explanation for why paladins are not about "law reform". Because law and justice are, in this conception, not ultimately human endeavours.

Applying this to the idea of alignment and code in the D&D context, the paladin should be seeing, and revealing, the _good_ in law whenever it comes up. And the paladin has no duty to subjugate his or her judgement to that of someone who lies about, manipulates or ruthlessly (mis-)applies the law. Aragorn's dealing with Beregond is a clear example of this.



Gammadoodler said:


> someone might try to design a conundrum for a character who is both "lawful" and "good" that forces them to compromise on one or the other of those attributes.



Well, of course its _possible_ to tell a story that comes out differently from LotR: we can tell a story in which Sauron blasts Aragorn's mind through the palantir; or in which Aragorn dies outside the Black Gates; or Frodo is indeed captured and the ring lost; or in which Aragorn, like Denethor, succumbs to hubris and despair and allows Beregond to be executed.

In the RPGing context, I think there are three main options:

(1) The GM goes along with the paladin player's desire to play a paladin, and therefore presents a world in which it's clear that the pursuit of honour and justice and fidelity to law and tradition can be reconciled. (And this sort of GM will go along with imaginative reconciliations that the player puts forward, in the spirit of Aragorn.)

(2) The GM believes that the paladin's ideals are flawed, and therefore presents a world in which conflict between honour, justice and fidelity is inevitable. Further consequences of this may be that the paladin falls, or we invent workarounds for the code and alignment (as the PF2 preview does).

(3) The actual play of the game is oriented towards finding out whether or not the paladin's ideals are true or flawed.​
Personally I prefer (3), and am currently playing a paladin in such a game. (Not D&D, though - Burning Wheel.)

For a fairly light or DL-ish sort of campaign, I think (1) is appropriate.

I personally think (2) is the pits for RPGing, and wouldn't want to play a paladin in such a game, but I'm sure others disagree.


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## Slit518 (May 11, 2018)

I feel them releasing Starfinder now that long ago, and then announcing Pathfinder 2 recently was a huge mistake.

Starfinder is futuristic Pathfinder, but with a rules bridge similar to D&D 3.0 to D&D 3.5.

What is Pathfinder 2 going to be that is going to make it so radically different?  If it just uses the changes Starfinder had but in a Pathfinder setting, that isn't really a huge leap, is it?

Or will Pathfinder 2 be the different from D&D and AD&D?

So far, not impressed.


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## Yaarel (May 11, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> And shouldn't there be a place in the rules for inferior armor?




Yeah, but defective armors should be in a separate table, away from the standard table.

Also, P2 seems to have a tier system for armor quality.

−2 Poor
−1 ...
+0 ...
+1 Expert
+2 Master

Ring armor is exactly ‘poor’ ‘scale armor’.

For certain settings where resources are scarce and scavenging is a prominent trope, it is ok to have flavorful descriptions for what ‘poor’ armor looks like. But again, it would be a separate nonstandard table. So, in some metal-scarce settings, poor scale armor might look like elegant padded leather with large thin rings sewn onto it. In some technology-scarce settings, poor scale armor might look like wearing junkyard scraps.


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## Yaarel (May 11, 2018)

Darksun is a setting, where you want a table for poor armors, along with vivid descriptions in the text.

But note, Darksun with its metal scarcity, uses weapons of quartz and obsidian analogous to Latin American Native peoples. These weapons are razor sharp and highly effective. Their problem is they are nondurable, in constant need of repair, sharpening and replacing the obsidian teeth, and continually go from master to poor.


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## MoonSong (May 11, 2018)

[MENTION=6914290]Gammadoodler[/MENTION] maybe I'm extreme-picky in my likings, actually that is quite likely the case, but I don't think I'm alone. The paladin archetype predates RPGs and extends beyond gamers. There is nothing there about being the zealous puppet of a deity. It is all about justice, hope and capital good. 

And speaking of GOOD, I held it to be an objective force, independent of the wills of the so-called deities, I don't see it as a personification with its own will. And definitely not a god -unless you go pantheist on it-. In my view, paladins tap into it, and they manage to do it out of their own virtue and conviction. Why is their path harder than that of a cleric? because there are no shortcuts. If they falter, if they let evil taint their hearts, then they cannot tap into GOOD anymore. Anybody could tap into it if they had the purity of heart and strong desire to do good and fight for justice. 
 [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] Exactly! I cannot buy any of the "good" gods being actually good in the Realms. The mere existence of the wall shows it. Any actual good god would have opposed it from the beginning. "Kelemvor, if you want to rebuild the wall, you'd rather start by killing and putting us on it. Cause we won't let you cause any harm to souls just for the sake of MOAR power to the gods".  



pemerton said:


> In my contributions to this thread I am not trying to argue for how Paizo should present their PF2 paladin class; nor for what is "the best" presentation of such a class in a RPG. Those are questions that have to be answered using knowledge about player preferences, market trends, etc, and I don't have that knowledge.
> 
> I am talking about the archetype of the paladin. D&D didn't invent this archetype; nor did Poul Anderson. (Though clearly he was influential on the particular way D&D first operationalised it.)




Sure he didn't.



> Applying this to the idea of alignment and code in the D&D context, the paladin should be seeing, and revealing, the _good_ in law whenever it comes up. And the paladin has no duty to subjugate his or her judgement to that of someone who lies about, manipulates or ruthlessly (mis-)applies the law. Aragorn's dealing with Beregond is a clear example of this.




Aragorn may be called a ranger, but he behaves like a paladin, fights like a paladin, has healing touch like a paladin and quacks like a paladin.



> In the RPGing context, I think there are three main options:
> (1) The GM goes along with the paladin player's desire to play a paladin, and therefore presents a world in which it's clear that the pursuit of honour and justice and fidelity to law and tradition can be reconciled. (And this sort of GM will go along with imaginative reconciliations that the player puts forward, in the spirit of Aragorn.)
> 
> (2) The GM believes that the paladin's ideals are flawed, and therefore presents a world in which conflict between honour, justice and fidelity is inevitable. Further consequences of this may be that the paladin falls, or we invent workarounds for the code and alignment (as the PF2 preview does).
> ...




It'd be cool to play a paladin in (2) and make the DM change his mind. Not happening, but I would play one in that situation just to try. But yeah, a paladin is more appropriate for a world where good actually means something, it doesn't have to be clearly black and white, so long as no true gray exists.


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## Yaarel (May 11, 2018)

In reallife, I care about ‘alignment’. For the game, I want alignment out of mechanics.

Alignment belongs in the bio, in the personality section, along with ideals and ambitions.



Likewise, I want polytheism out of the mechanics. Polytheism, if any, belongs in the setting cosmology − or even better, in the descriptions of certain cultures.

Make the ‘deep’ astral plane a dream-like mental realm of ideals, where each culture can subjectively interact with their own cultural archetypes, symbols, and values − as well as their own concepts of fears and crimes. For example, a monotheistic culture might encounter their ideals as heroes or angels, or even better as abstract scenarios of how people relate to each other.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 11, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> I guess we could argue it like the chicken and the egg. I feel there is ample evidence of unjust laws throughout history to suggest that it's not a wholly sensible argument, but I can concede the potential.



Obviously different people write laws for different reasons. But justice is one of those reasons. And since this conversation is about lawful good paladins rather than lawful evil tyrants, justice makes a whole lot of sense here.



Gammadoodler said:


> And thus we come full circle where someone might try to design a conundrum for a character who is both "lawful" and "good" that forces them to compromise on one or the other of those attributes.
> Unless what you've been trying to say all along is that "Lawful" = "Good", in which case we have engaged in a truly silly discussion.



I'd say that the best way to understand the paladin's worldview as something which a sensible three-dimensional character might actually want to follow, as opposed to a contradictory mess with which to torment lawful stupid strawmen, is to view it as a synthesis. "Lawful" and "good" are not two attributes -- "lawful good" is a single attribute. A paladin swears one oath, not two. Depending on the campaign, they might not even be _aware_ of the distinction between law and good as we define them -- what we think of as "lawful good" they are just as likely to think of with a one-word label like, oh, "justice". So attempting to design a conundrum along these lines is assuming premises that the paladin rejects.

That's not to say that paladins can never face difficult choices. But they're not going to be difficult because one horn of the dilemma is "good" and the other horn is "lawful"; they're going to be difficult because both horns are "lawful good" in different ways. To take the executing-an-innocent scenario as you have analyzed it, carrying out the execution is both lawful and good because it upholds the general faith in the law which protects and benefits society, and stopping the execution is both lawful and good because it prevents a perversion of the law and saves a life. Now, by _my_ analysis if I were playing the paladin, I would not see any good in using the death of an innocent as a means to an end, but that wouldn't turn this into a dilemma between law and good either: it would just make the wrong choice obvious, rendering this not a dilemma at all.


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], Based on your expressed intent, there are some mixed messages included here. "It's not about how Paizo does it, it's about the one true appropriate way to define it by literary heritage". So, it's not that Paizo is wrong, but they're also not right? I'm legitimately curious here, where are you you trying to plant your flag, and for what?

Dismissing Aragorn as being a ranger kinda wasn't the point, though I'm perfectly willing to stand by it (There was a lot of running or hiding from no-win situations rather than head-on confrontations with them in honorable combat; it wasn't Aragorn solo on the bridge with the balrog). I'm sure there is a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B here. The larger point is that as, king, he makes the rules, so it's not like he has to _really_ concern himself with the law. I may be way off base, but I suspect that most GMs wouldn't immediately allow one of their PCs to include "rightful king" in their backstory without some significant cautionary discussion beforehand. 

As it relates to the creation of the dilemma. The goal is not to cause a character to fall, but force the player to evaluate what the character's values really are and take responsibility for choices and/or sacrifices that they make. It's not really even about the outcome, it's about making space for character-defining choices. 

As for the options you present, I don't think they are incompatible with each other, exposure to the whole mix would be worthwhile. Sole use of option 1 seems like it'd be the pits for the DM and other PCs as it sounds like any conflict that the DM could throw your way you end up handwaving with, "I do _x_..and it works..because paladin."


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

@_*MoonSong*_
So to be clear, do you feel _your_ version of the paladin could not be represented under any version of "holy warrior" class, that it must be distinctly it's own thing?  

And Good is essentially a force, like gravity that only Paladins can draw on? (And further that there are no other similar type forces from which other warriors could draw similar power without the requirement for absolute virtue?) And at the gaming table, I'm assuming the GM decides what is and is not Good or are you prepared to define what is and is not Good?

As far as Aragorn as paladin or ranger goes, I've discussed as much of that as I'm really willing to since it doesn't actually lead anywhere.


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

[MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION]



> Obviously different people write laws for different reasons. But justice is one of those reasons. And since this conversation is about lawful good paladins rather than lawful evil tyrants, justice makes a whole lot of sense here.




Except that typically, paladins (even assuming they are always good) aren't the ones writing the laws, they'd be the ones subject to and or enforcing those laws, whatever they are, and regardless of any ideals or purposes intrinsic to those laws' creation. If the laws are unjust, and the paladin is unwilling to follow or enforce them, that paladin would not be characterized as "lawful" while they may still be "good." 



> I'd say that the best way to understand the paladin's worldview as something which a sensible three-dimensional character might actually want to follow, as opposed to a contradictory mess with which to torment lawful stupid strawmen, is to view it as a synthesis. "Lawful" and "good" are not two attributes -- "lawful good" is a single attribute. A paladin swears one oath, not two. Depending on the campaign, they might not even be aware of the distinction between law and good as we define them -- what we think of as "lawful good" they are just as likely to think of with a one-word label like, oh, "justice". So attempting to design a conundrum along these lines is assuming premises that the paladin rejects.
> 
> That's not to say that paladins can never face difficult choices. But they're not going to be difficult because one horn of the dilemma is "good" and the other horn is "lawful"; they're going to be difficult because both horns are "lawful good" in different ways. To take the executing-an-innocent scenario as you have analyzed it, carrying out the execution is both lawful and good because it upholds the general faith in the law which protects and benefits society, and stopping the execution is both lawful and good because it prevents a perversion of the law and saves a life. Now, by my analysis if I were playing the paladin, I would not see any good in using the death of an innocent as a means to an end, but that wouldn't turn this into a dilemma between law and good either: it would just make the wrong choice obvious, rendering this not a dilemma at all.




Ahh..so you are saying that "lawful" and "good" are either the same thing or so tightly linked that there is no meaningful way to parse them. If that's the case, then the "lawful" part of it doesn't really mean anything does it? 

So, by your reckoning paladins can:

1. Follow and enforce the law
2. Choose to follow and enforce "the spirit of the law" if the actual law is insufficient.. OR 
3. If "the spirit of the law" sucks too (e.g. slavery), they can just not follow or enforce the law, because .. paladins. 

Oh and no matter what they do, they're still lawful good. 

Do you see how the "lawful" portion of your "lawful good" behavior gets to be pretty vestigial by the end there?


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## pemerton (May 11, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], Based on your expressed intent, there are some mixed messages included here. "It's not about how Paizo does it, it's about the one true appropriate way to define it by literary heritage". So, it's not that Paizo is wrong, but they're also not right? I'm legitimately curious here, where are you you trying to plant your flag, and for what?



I'm saying that there is a literary (and not purely literary) archetype, and that is where the paladin comes from.

A D&D or PF class may or may not be called a paladin, and may or may not correspond to that archetype. That's an issue of game design and, probably more importantly, game marketing. As I said, I don't know what will make a game play well for the majority of the PF2 market. What I am also saying, though, is that a version of the "paladin" that ranks the tenets of the code - thereby, for instance, expressing the worry that honour and goodness might come into conflict - is departing from the archetype. 

That departure may be popular or unpopular, and may make for better gameplay or worse gameplay at someone's table. I'm offering an analysis of it, not saying whether or not it's a good thing.



Gammadoodler said:


> as, king, he makes the rules, so it's not like he has to _really_ concern himself with the law.



This isn't an accurate account of mediaeval kingship in general, certainly not of the idealised conception of it that JRRT is engaging with. I haven't got my copy of LotR in front of me, but I found a copy of the passage online:

"Beregond, by your sword blood was spilled in the Hallows, where that is forbidden. Also you left your post without leave of Lord or Captain. For these things, of old, death was the penalty. Now therefore I shall pronounce your doom."

"All penalty is remitted for your valour in battle, and still more because all that you did was for the love of the Lord Faramir. Nonetheless you must leave the Guard of the Citadel, and you must go forth from the city of Minas Tirith..."

"So it must be, for you are appointed to the White Company, the Guard of Faramir, Prince of Ithilien, and you shall be its captain and dwell in Emyn Arnen in honour and peace, and in the service of him for whom you risked all, to save him from death."​
Putting it in more sociological terms (and using Weber's sociology of law and governmental authority - not everyone likes it, but I do), Aragorn here is drawing on his charismatic authority to shape the understanding and application of traditional law. He doesn't claim to be dispensing with the law - rather, he applies it: he pronounces judgement, remitting the death penalty, imposing exile instead but the exile taking the form of an honourable appointment that recognises the valour that underpins the remittance. The application upholds all that is valuable in the traditional law: valour; loyalty to the king and the stewards; loyalty to the city of Minas Tirith. It is not an act of law-making in any self-conscious sense.

Another example, I think less nuanced but from a D&D source, is the way the character of Sturm Brightblade in the DL Chronicles reveals the true meaning of the Oath that "My Honour is My Life".



Gammadoodler said:


> I may be way off base, but I suspect that most GMs wouldn't immediately allow one of their PCs to include "rightful king" in their backstory without some significant cautionary discussion beforehand.



But a paladin doesn't need to be a lawmaker to see the good in the law and voice it. Of course - which relates directly to the 3 ways I identified to approach a game with a paladin in it - the GM can always push back. So to pick up again on [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION]'s example of the orphan who inadvertently enters the forbidden palace courtyard: if the player of the paladin, speaking in character to the decision-maker, suggests as an application of the law that s/he take the orphan into service, thus rendering the orphan not a forbidden person, the GM can have the queen (or whomever is making the decision) refuse and try to insist on execution. But that would be contrary to approach (1) - which, rather, would have the queen agree with the paladin and recognise the wisdom of his/her solution. It would fit with approach (3) only if the player of the paladin fails to succeed in the appropriate resolution framework; in which case, it would be part of the process, perhaps, of discovering that the paladin's ideals are, indeed, futile. Under approach (2) the GM might just decide that the queen says no, and then the player of the paladin has to decide to break the law and disregard a legitimate command in order to save an innocent life. This seems to be what Paizo has in mind in building a hierarchy into the code.



Gammadoodler said:


> As it relates to the creation of the dilemma. The goal is not to cause a character to fall, but force the player to evaluate what the character's values really are and take responsibility for choices and/or sacrifices that they make. It's not really even about the outcome, it's about making space for character-defining choices.



But a paladin's values are already clear. We know what they are: _truth_, _honour/I], virtue, steadfastness, courtesy, humility, courage, generosity are some of the most obvious ones.

The idea that we have to evaluate which of these the character really adheres to already takes, as a premise, that you can't adhere to them all at once: which is to say already takes as a premise that the paladin is foolish, naive, utopian, etc, in believing as s/he does._


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## TheCosmicKid (May 11, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Except that typically, paladins (even assuming they are always good) aren't the ones writing the laws, they'd be the ones subject to and or enforcing those laws, whatever they are, and regardless of any ideals or purposes intrinsic to those laws' creation.



Why _"regardless of any ideals or purposes"_? The paladin is all about grand ideals and greater purposes. Quoting 5E because the book is at hand: _"...their loyalty is first to the cause of righteousness, not to crown and country."_



Gammadoodler said:


> If the laws are unjust, and the paladin is unwilling to follow or enforce them, that paladin would not be characterized as "lawful" while they may still be "good."



Why not? A character who is committed to upholding _good laws_ sure sounds "lawful good" to me. The commitment you are describing -- to all _law_ while remaining _neutral_ on whether it's good or evil -- sounds like it might be something else.



Gammadoodler said:


> Ahh..so you are saying that "lawful" and "good" are either the same thing or so tightly linked that there is no meaningful way to parse them. If that's the case, then the "lawful" part of it doesn't really mean anything does it?



No, I am saying that in the mind of the paladin, they are synthesized into a single ideal. It does not follow from this that one part or the other is meaningless. You cannot easily reseparate the components of of a mixed drink, but that doesn't mean a screwdriver is the same as a glass of orange juice.



Gammadoodler said:


> So, by your reckoning paladins can:
> 
> 1. Follow and enforce the law
> 2. Choose to follow and enforce "the spirit of the law" if the actual law is insufficient.. OR
> ...



But if they _did_ enforce even the bad laws, well, it'd be the "good" portion of their alignment that was vestigial, wouldn't it? As I hinted above, I think the basic problem is that you're conflating "lawful" with "lawful neutral". There is no "neutral" in "lawful good". They are allowed to notice whether or not a law is good. I cite as evidence of this the fact that it makes lawful goodness possible, whereas your definitions seem simply to render it impossible.


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## AkaKageWarrior (May 11, 2018)

thekittenhugs said:


> Paizo continues to hedge all its future bets on its current fanbase loving the complexity of the system above all else, even as the less-hardcore fans are cannibalized by 5e. It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them.




I play 70% PF, 30% 5e, I really like both systems.
The complexity and possibilities (concerning character building) of PF, the simplicity and kinda-old-school-feel of 5e (and that they completely ditched all 4e garbage...).

While playing I always find that even 5e is complex enough, so I am shocked that so far it seems that PF2 is getting even more complex than PF1. Don't know if that's a good idea.

The nerd and engineer in me likes new game systems, I mostly see the good side and always find improvements over previous versions - but from what I've seen until now I'll probably not have more than a look at PF2.
But let's see...


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## Kobold Boots (May 11, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Paladins get weird when you try to import them into settings where religion is complicated.




Which is why alignment is important.  If paladins can only be LG, then you have maybe three gods that can be patrons of them and they all want demons gone and for the most part work in concert.  Complication eliminated.

If the players and DM's want paladins to be complicated, then as an expression of their idiosyncracies, they will be.  It's not a game problem.  Personally, I've always had one monolithic faith in my games for LG that works at times against polytheism and at other times with it.  Paladins come from that monolithic faith structure and no other.  It's one of the reasons its ascending.

My players tend to be a broad range of religions in real life and it rankles the preferences of some of those who ascribe to pagan thought.  Then I hear it from the fundamentalists that they would really rather not have polytheism in the game and I refer them to the pagans.  We're all friends so it works out.  Point is, religion is complicated generally.  Who you have running your game or creating your game will determine whether it affects you; moreso than the rules.  

For every player that wants holy warriors of a non LG variety, you're going to have one that doesn't.

Be well
KB


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## houser2112 (May 11, 2018)

CubicsRube said:


> Is that touch ac or regular ac? I have poor quality chainmail, so it's a 5 -2, but i have a +3 for my proficiency. And i used my shield. Thats fine quality. Do i get the bonus for that for touch ac? So its a +3? And i have the heavily armored feat that gives me +1. And i can add my dex bonus, so another +1. And then has that buff worn off? Oh ok. And my level of course, so 5. So my touch ac is 10+5-2+3+1+1+5 so ... ummm 23?




To all you people who decry the bonus-based method of determining derived stats like armor class... do you really calculate such things on the fly every single time? Do you not have separate spaces on your character sheet "This is my touch AC, this is my normal AC, this is my flat-footed AC, etc", so that you only have to do calculations when there are temporary buffs?


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## Zansy (May 11, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> I don't know, a paladin that compromises good doesn't sound like a paladin. But you are right, paladins shouldn't have to be shackled by so many burdens, which is why I don't think they should serve deities at all. (I blame the Realms for that one actually)
> 
> Like I said, this sounds more like a point in favor of a split than one against it. All it proves is that a single class is too little design space to cover both the LG Paladin and the Divine Champion of any random deity.




I think it fits in rather well in terms of the moral issues some people must face. The kind of people who might justify not doing "the good thing" because they must do "the lawful thing", which to them, is the right thing to do.
 They could be the kind to do the lawful thing because they were following orders, and obeying just authority, which to them comes first - loyalty to the law, or to a just lord comes before everything else to them. These LG people can be every bit as much paladin as a paladin who is GL.

Regarding the second quote: I don't think there's no room for both, I just think the way they're (paizo's) going at it isn't inclusive enough to allow players to have some freedom over they're character's priorities. 5e was able to make a tenets system that was independent of ailgnment. And even if wishing for pathfinder 2 to do the same thing is unrealistic, they could learn a thing or two from WotC by minimalizing the enforcement of alignment, increassing the spectrum of potential aligmments for the class, or, if nothing else, minimalizing the impact of making such a mistake, unless the paladin in question repents for their actions.

Just as another closing thought, because I keep thinking of more alternative solutions - why not rid yourself of the absolute dependency of an atonement spell, and say that a GM can allow a paladin to atone for their mistakes by doing a notable Lawful Good act (such as innocent saving lives or something? I dunno). So that even if you bind a paladin to a single alignment, the player has the agency to make mistakes and atone for them as part of the adventure, and would make it so your career as a paladin doesn't end with a single mistake or error in judgment, and you don't have to change characters or seek out an atonement spell.


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I'm saying that there is a literary (and not purely literary) archetype, and that is where the paladin comes from.
> 
> A D&D or PF class may or may not be called a paladin, and may or may not correspond to that archetype. That's an issue of game design and, probably more importantly, game marketing. As I said, I don't know what will make a game play well for the majority of the PF2 market. What I am also saying, though, is that a version of the "paladin" that ranks the tenets of the code - thereby, for instance, expressing the worry that honour and goodness might come into conflict - is departing from the archetype.
> 
> That departure may be popular or unpopular, and may make for better gameplay or worse gameplay at someone's table. I'm offering an analysis of it, not saying whether or not it's a good thing.




So, "Here's what I think a paladin is". "RPG paladins may vary from this description"."Who cares?"




pemerton said:


> Putting it in more sociological terms (and using Weber's sociology of law and governmental authority - not everyone likes it, but I do), Aragorn here is drawing on his charismatic authority to shape the understanding and application of traditional law. He doesn't claim to be dispensing with the law - rather, he applies it: he pronounces judgement, remitting the death penalty, imposing exile instead but the exile taking the form of an honourable appointment that recognises the valour that underpins the remittance. The application upholds all that is valuable in the traditional law: valour; loyalty to the king and the stewards; loyalty to the city of Minas Tirith. It is not an act of law-making in any self-conscious sense.




It may not be a self-conscious act of law-making, but it is a self-conscious act of law-breaking. Further, if he is indeed drawing on "charismatic authority," it is a law-breaking which only he can commit and continue to call it "lawful." Still further, from a Yale sociology lecture on Weber and charismatic authority:

https://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/socy-151/lecture-19

_Charismatic authority, unlike traditional authority, is a revolutionary and unstable form of authority. Weber borrows the religious term of charisma and extends its use to a secular meaning. Audiences and followers believe that charismatic leaders have a close connection to a divine power, have exceptional skills, or are exemplary in some way. Charismatic leaders promise change in the future for the society and also change people’s attitudes and values; in this way, charismatic authority is revolutionary in a way that traditional and legal-rational authority are not. _

I suspect we are getting into semantics here, but it from an alignment perspective, this sounds more like "chaotic". 



pemerton said:


> But a paladin doesn't need to be a lawmaker to see the good in the law and voice it. Of course - which relates directly to the 3 ways I identified to approach a game with a paladin in it - the GM can always push back. So to pick up again on @_*mellored*_'s example of the orphan who inadvertently enters the forbidden palace courtyard: if the player of the paladin, speaking in character to the decision-maker, suggests as an application of the law that s/he take the orphan into service, thus rendering the orphan not a forbidden person, the GM can have the queen (or whomever is making the decision) refuse and try to insist on execution. But that would be contrary to approach (1) - which, rather, would have the queen agree with the paladin and recognise the wisdom of his/her solution. It would fit with approach (3) only if the player of the paladin fails to succeed in the appropriate resolution framework; in which case, it would be part of the process, perhaps, of discovering that the paladin's ideals are, indeed, futile. Under approach (2) the GM might just decide that the queen says no, and then the player of the paladin has to decide to break the law and disregard a legitimate command in order to save an innocent life. This seems to be what Paizo has in mind in building a hierarchy into the code.
> 
> But a paladin's values are already clear. We know what they are: _truth_, _honour_, _virtue_, _steadfastness_, _courtesy_, _humility_, _courage_, _generosity_ are some of the most obvious ones.
> 
> The idea that we have to evaluate which of these the character _really_ adheres to already takes, as a premise, that you can't adhere to them all at once: which is to say already takes as a premise that the paladin is foolish, naive, utopian, etc, in believing as s/he does.




Correct. Is it odd to assume that a character seeking to adhere absolutely to a set of idealized values in a less then ideal world would have to be some combination of foolish, naive, utopian, etc.? Even Camelot was no stranger to scandal.

Edit: I should further clarify that I don't believe that there is anything wrong with being any of these things.


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## Gammadoodler (May 11, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Why _"regardless of any ideals or purposes"_? The paladin is all about grand ideals and greater purposes. Quoting 5E because the book is at hand: _"...their loyalty is first to the cause of righteousness, not to crown and country."_




Because people are typically subject to the laws of their surroundings. The paladin doesn't suddenly become exempt from this by virtue of class selection. As a side note, the 5E book you quote from does not presume a particular alignment for Paladins.




TheCosmicKid said:


> Why not? A character who is committed to upholding _good laws_ sure sounds "lawful good" to me. The commitment you are describing -- to all _law_ while remaining _neutral_ on whether it's good or evil -- sounds like it might be something else.




To be clear, I am not saying that all paladins should only honor the laws, whatever they are. I am contending that lawfulness and goodness are not _always_ overlapping attributes. 



TheCosmicKid said:


> No, I am saying that in the mind of the paladin, they are synthesized into a single ideal. It does not follow from this that one part or the other is meaningless. You cannot easily reseparate the components of of a mixed drink, but that doesn't mean a screwdriver is the same as a glass of orange juice.




And all screwdrivers are the same right?



TheCosmicKid said:


> But if they _did_ enforce even the bad laws, well, it'd be the "good" portion of their alignment that was vestigial, wouldn't it? As I hinted above, I think the basic problem is that you're conflating "lawful" with "lawful neutral". There is no "neutral" in "lawful good". They are allowed to notice whether or not a law is good. I cite as evidence of this the fact that it makes lawful goodness possible, whereas your definitions seem simply to render it impossible.




So lest I risk misunderstanding, are you agreeing with my understanding of your framework and conclusion? 1, 2, and 3, and _always_ lawful good? If so, I have indeed erred, as both components of the paladin's alignment would be more properly labeled as vestigial since there is no set of actions the paladin could take which would alter or affect their alignment in any way.


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## D1Tremere (May 11, 2018)

*Philosophy and Alignment*



Zansy said:


> On paper, If there was any room for interpretation for what LG is, and what their code of conduct should be. I might be able to tolerate it. if they gave out the code of conduct and stuck to just the anathemas and the other rules deities have (their name eludes me at the moment. I apologize--) that would have been fine, it's weird to me that paladins have to follow more rules than, say, clerics of the same faith, but lose everything they have going if they break any of them. even if you put aside all those extra, universal rules - even if Clerics could theoretically "convert" in PF1 and 3.5e by changing deities, paladins don't have that privilege except to be the exact opposite of what he was, and most players don't even get that.
> 
> once again -
> 1 flavor of paladin ice cream. with several other shapes of sprinkles. Shapes - not even flavors.




I think they are using a *deontological approach (the same as D&D core previous) because the Paladin (unlike the cleric) is being asked to do things that serve their god/faith without stopping to contemplate the long term moral consequences. The *Teleological contemplation is more the domain of the clergy, with the Paladin serving as their instrument. Thus the Paladin needs some action oriented moral philosophy that allows them to defer to the judgement of others in the end. 

**Deontological*    (philosophy) (of an ethical theory) regarding obligation as deriving from reason or as residing primarily in certain specific rules of conduct rather than in the maximization of some good  

**Teleological ethics*,  (teleological from Greek _telos_, “end”; _logos_, “science”), theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. Also known as consequentialist ethics, it is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek _deon_,  “duty”), which holds that the basic standards for an action’s being  morally right are independent of the good or evil generated.


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## mellored (May 11, 2018)

> The law states that anyone who enters's the queen's bath area uninvited will be beheaded.
> Some orphan throws his ball over a fence and climbs over the fence to get it, unknowingly entering into the queen's bath area. The paladin on guard catches that kid.
> 
> Does the paladin kill the orphan or not?





TheCosmicKid said:


> The paladin sees the loophole and invites the kid to retrieve his ball, then lets him leave. They then go to the queen and say, "Your majesty, something terrible almost happened today. Let's fix this law."



Just to continue the scenario...

The kid turns out to be an assassins in disguised, who poisioned the queens bath water.  The queen is now dead because the paladin chose to ignore the law.
The king tells the paladin to hunt down and kill the assassin at all cost.

The paladin then tracks down the assassin, and finds the assassin on a rope bridge over a volcano with a new born baby on his back.
The paladin can cut the brige, sending both the assassin and baby to their doom, or let the assasin escape (the assasin will cut the bridge when he reaches the other side).

He has to act fast before the assassin escapes again.  He can kill both, or let the asssassin escape.  What does he do?


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## D1Tremere (May 11, 2018)

mellored said:


> Just to continue the scenario...
> 
> The kid turns out to be an assassins in disguised, who poisioned the queens bath water.  The queen is now dead because the paladin chose to ignore the law.
> The king tells the paladin to hunt down and kill the assassin at all cost.
> ...




First I would argue that Paladin's do not follow Kings/queens, they follow Gods and Religions. 
If their God/Religion, or a true representative of such (which could be a king/queen) were to tell them that they must fulfill a duty (kill the Assassin AT ALL COST) then they would cut the bridge. This would kill the Assassin, who by their own action is dragging the child hostage to their death. 
That is exactly the reason for the moral philosophical difference between clerics and paladins. A paladin doesn't have the luxury of questioning the complexity of moral circumstance, they must act. Their duties, their deontological mandate is what must be followed. They leave the moral complexities to clerics/priests.


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## mellored (May 11, 2018)

MoonSong said:


> Virtue, conviction to do good and keep order. A paladin is both optimistic and idealistic, virtuous and uncompromising. Save everybody even if it is impossible. Be a champion of good and justice. Between Rolando and El Cid there's a world of difference. El Cid was pragmatic, and cynical. He would never be what you call a paladin, even if he himself was considered a defender of the faith. Deities are orthogonal to paladins, some paladins will be defenders of faith, but only the faith of the lawful good gods. Evil and chaotic deities will have their own holy champions, but they won't be paladins, because a paladin is always striving for  the greater good without compromising the order that makes life bearable. Rescue and save everybody so they can live, not just survive.
> 
> A fighter is someone who fights...



You're describing the lawful good alignment, not a class.  Rolando would be the lawful good fighter.  El Cid would be netural good fighter.

You mention nothing about weapons, armor, shields, mounts, smiting undead, lay on hands, charisma, or anything like that.

So, I could just as easily have a virtuous, optimistic, idealistic, and uncompromising wizard.
And the easiest way to represent that is a feat (IMO).


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## zztong (May 11, 2018)

mellored said:


> The paladin then tracks down the assassin, and finds the assassin on a rope bridge over a volcano with a new born baby on his back. What does he do?




I look for something that identifies who made the bridge. Clearly they're a very talented engineer with a diabolical mind. They could kill dozens. They're the greater evil. By the way, screw my Paladinhood. I never could understand the code anyways. It's a fighter's life for me.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 11, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Because people are typically subject to the laws of their surroundings. The paladin doesn't suddenly become exempt from this by virtue of class selection.



No, they become exempt from this by virtue of alignment selection. "People are subject to the laws of their surroundings, _right or wrong_" is a norm pretty specific to lawful neutral (and perhaps lawful evil, in a twisted way). The clue lies in the word "neutral".



Gammadoodler said:


> As a side note, the 5E book you quote from does not presume a particular alignment for Paladins.



Fine, make me dig out 3E: _"...paladins swear to follow a code of conduct that is in line with lawfulness and goodness... Paladins need not devote themselves to a single deity---devotion to righteousness is enough"_. This game has been pretty consistently clear that the "law" a paladin follows transcends the mundane laws of kings and queens, or even sometimes gods.



Gammadoodler said:


> And all screwdrivers are the same right?



Was I using that analogy to claim that all paladins are the same? Have I at any point in any way claimed that all paladins are the same?

(But actually, it is pretty hard to mess up "one part vodka, one part orange juice".)



Gammadoodler said:


> So lest I risk misunderstanding, are you agreeing with my understanding of your framework and conclusion? 1, 2, and 3, and _always_ lawful good? If so, I have indeed erred, as both components of the paladin's alignment would be more properly labeled as vestigial since there is no set of actions the paladin could take which would alter or affect their alignment in any way.



"These three actions are lawful good, therefore there are no actions that are not lawful good"? Come on, dude, you have to know that logic doesn't hold water.

A few actions which are not lawful good:

Undermining the authority of a just monarch or government 
Indifference to a sincere plea for help 
Accepting a bribe to subvert one's duty 
Shoplifting 
Butchering random people in dark alleys


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## TheCosmicKid (May 11, 2018)

mellored said:


> Just to continue the scenario...
> 
> The kid turns out to be an assassins in disguised, who poisioned the queens bath water.  The queen is now dead because the paladin chose to ignore the law.
> The king tells the paladin to hunt down and kill the assassin at all cost.
> ...



Given the escalating absurdity of the circumstances, the paladin soon deduces that he is in fact in a hypothetical scenario rather than a real world. He makes a sincere and heartfelt plea to you, the hypothesizer, not to kill and endanger hypothetical innocents just to score points in an internet debate.


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## Sunseeker (May 11, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Given the escalating absurdity of the circumstances, the paladin soon deduces that he is in fact in a hypothetical scenario rather than a real world. He makes a sincere and heartfelt plea to you, the hypothesizer, not to kill and endanger hypothetical innocents just to score points in an internet debate.




PSSSH!  Clearly the paladin uses his charismatic skill to convince the lava not to hurt the baby.


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## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> No, they become exempt from this by virtue of alignment selection. "People are subject to the laws of their surroundings, _right or wrong_" is a norm pretty specific to lawful neutral (and perhaps lawful evil, in a twisted way). The clue lies in the word "neutral".




"People are subject to the laws of their surroundings" has literally nothing to do with class or alignment. What it means is that if there is a law of the land, and you are in that land, the normal expectation is for you to follow those laws. Characters of differing alignments may have differing feelings regarding adhering to that norm, but their alignment doesn't exempt them from the expectation. 

It is interesting, though your choice of the phrasing in "alignment selection." It's been my interpretation, thus far, that alignment is intended to describe how others view the actions of the character; these "others" may be characters in game, or the players and DM at the table. If the assumption here is that it's really how the character sees themselves, I see better where you are coming from. There would still be problems (I suspect most people and D&D creatures would see themselves as basically lawful and basically good, at least within whatever context matters to them), but I'd understand better the basis.



TheCosmicKid said:


> Fine, make me dig out 3E: _"...paladins swear to follow a code of conduct that is in line with lawfulness and goodness... Paladins need not devote themselves to a single deity---devotion to righteousness is enough"_. This game has been pretty consistently clear that the "law" a paladin follows transcends the mundane laws of kings and queens, or even sometimes gods.




You really needn't have. If we're already debating whether a new ruleset should restrict the alignment of the class, I don't know what would make you think that a reference to another ruleset in a different system is likely to be persuasive. 

That said, if there is this "transcendant law" that paladins are required to follow, it's pretty important to specify what/where it comes from (as the presence of this transcendant lawful force..or whatever.. should have some kind of cosmological implication on the world) and whether it is written down (as following an unrecorded "transcendant law" just means you're lawful because you say you are lawful).



TheCosmicKid said:


> Was I using that analogy to claim that all paladins are the same? Have I at any point in any way claimed that all paladins are the same?



Perhaps not that particular analogy, but basically everything else you've said would seem to line up with that conclusion. But I'm willing to step back a bit. Are you meaning to say that a character is a paladin because they are lawful and good, or that a character is lawful and good because they are a paladin. Or are you saying some other, third thing (For example, if you contend that a chaotic or neutral good paladin are possible, then we're probably just talking past each other). 



TheCosmicKid said:


> "These three actions are lawful good, therefore there are no actions that are not lawful good"? Come on, dude, you have to know that logic doesn't hold water.
> 
> A few actions which are not lawful good:
> 
> ...




I'm assuming you just didn't read the list, I'm not really sure what actions they fail to describe.

1. Follow and enforce the laws 
2. Follow and enforce the "spirit of the law."
3. If the "spirit of the law" sucks too, ignore/break the law. 

Conclusion: If a paladin does any of these, they are lawful good.

Perhaps I should have added "actively subvert or rebel against the laws" in order to cover the complete range of activity, but it didn't really seem necessary at the time. (Note, these bullets only presume the existence of laws, not the morality of those laws and reflect my understanding of the ways you feel a paladin may act and your conclusion that they are in all cases to be considered lawful good).


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

If nothing else, these last few pages demonstrate exactly the problem with an LG paladin: nobody can agree on what LG actually means without a code of behaviour to define the alignment.  And if we have a code of behaviour to define the alignment, shouldn't _that_ be what Paladins follow?  Which in turn would _make_ them Lawful Good?  Instead of wandering around not knowing their hinie from a hole in the ground?


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## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Given the escalating absurdity of the circumstances, the paladin soon deduces that he is in fact in a hypothetical scenario rather than a real world. He makes a sincere and heartfelt plea to you, the hypothesizer, not to kill and endanger hypothetical innocents just to score points in an internet debate.




LOL. Escalating absurdity...hypothetical scenarios. We can agree that 100% of RPGs are hypothetical scenarios, right? And that fantasy RPGs in particular have near limitless potential for absurdity? 

I know your point here is that you don't really feel like addressing elaborate hypotheticals.

It's just kinda funny that, by this logic, gods, monsters, and magic all get a pass, but a situation that imperils the oath of a paladin is just ridiculous.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> "People are subject to the laws of their surroundings" has literally nothing to do with class or alignment. What it means is that if there is a law of the land, and you are in that land, the normal expectation is for you to follow those laws. Characters of differing alignments may have differing feelings regarding adhering to that norm, but their alignment doesn't exempt them from the expectation.



If you're just saying that the people who enforce the law expect them to follow it and might arrest them if they don't, then sure, that's true of every character. But I'm not sure how that proves anything. As you say, characters of differing alignments can feel differently about following the law, and there's nothing to indicate that a lawful good character should feel obliged to follow a law that is not good. Not to keep beating a dead horse, but their convictions are _not neutral_ on the whole "is it good?" question.



Gammadoodler said:


> It is interesting, though your choice of the phrasing in "alignment selection." It's been my interpretation, thus far, that alignment is intended to describe how others view the actions of the character; these "others" may be characters in game, or the players and DM at the table. If the assumption here is that it's really how the character sees themselves, I see better where you are coming from. There would still be problems (I suspect most people and D&D creatures would see themselves as basically lawful and basically good, at least within whatever context matters to them), but I'd understand better the basis.



It's a bit of both, really. A character decides what ideals to espouse and what actions to perform. A paladin, in particular, chooses to swear an oath to behave in a specific way. That's what I mean by alignment selection. But the label we give the character's ideals and actions is from us, the players. A character who works as a professional assassin for a criminal cartel but sees themselves as "basically good"... isn't.



Gammadoodler said:


> That said, if there is this "transcendant law" that paladins are required to follow, it's pretty important to specify what/where it comes from (as the presence of this transcendant lawful force..or whatever.. should have some kind of cosmological implication on the world) and whether it is written down (as following an unrecorded "transcendant law" just means you're lawful because you say you are lawful).



Again, paladins swear an explicit oath. Other characters who follow a higher law rather than the laws of society, like archetypical monks for instance, might evince their lawfulness implicitly by acting in a rigorous and consistent manner.



Gammadoodler said:


> Are you meaning to say that a character is a paladin because they are lawful and good, or that a character is lawful and good because they are a paladin. Or are you saying some other, third thing (For example, if you contend that a chaotic or neutral good paladin are possible, then we're probably just talking past each other).



I don't even understand the question. Not all lawful good characters are paladins. Perhaps not all paladins are lawful good, but it's the lawful good ones who are relevant to this discussion. And certainly not all lawful good paladins behave the same way. Depending on the campaign setting, they may or may not all swear the same oath, but even those who do swear the same oath are different characters with different backgrounds, personalities, and outlooks.

By virtue of all being lawful good paladins, however, they do share _some_ common traits. They all frown upon butchering random people in dark alleys, to give a trivial example.



Gammadoodler said:


> I'm assuming you just didn't read the list, I'm not really sure what actions they fail to describe.
> 
> 1. Follow and enforce the laws
> 2. Follow and enforce the "spirit of the law."
> ...



Where do I come to the conclusion that they are in all cases to be considered lawful good? I have given no less than five cases in which they are _not_ to be considered lawful good. Your choosing not to regard the morality of the laws is causing you to miss the point entirely.

A paladin who follows and enforces the law is lawful good... _if and only if the law is good_.
A paladin who follows and enforces the spirit of the law is lawful good... _if and only if the spirit of the law is good_.
A paladin who ignores or breaks the law is lawful good... _if and only if the law is not good_.

So if there is a law that abolishes slavery, then a paladin who follows and enforces it is lawful good, and an alleged paladin who ignores or breaks it is not lawful good. But if there is a law that _allows_ slavery, then an alleged paladin who follows and enforces it is not lawful good, but a paladin who ignores or breaks it is lawful good.

In short, lawful good = wants good laws. I am not sure what part of this is getting lost between me and you.


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## Derren (May 12, 2018)

One problem with the D20 line of RPGs is that somehow they got the idea that a dexterous guy without armor should be equally well protected than someone with heavy armor. This is not only nonsense, it also makes armor inherently inferior because it is not worn all the time and also saddled with other penalties.
I with people would get away from that and make heavy armor the best protection there is with very good Dex only able to achieve a medium level of protection.


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## D1Tremere (May 12, 2018)

Derren said:


> One problem with the D20 line of RPGs is that somehow they got the idea that a dexterous guy without armor should be equally well protected than someone with heavy armor. This is not only nonsense, it also makes armor inherently inferior because it is not worn all the time and also saddled with other penalties.
> I with people would get away from that and make heavy armor the best protection there is with very good Dex only able to achieve a medium level of protection.




Historically heavy armor is only the best under very specific combat conditions. Like everything, it has its ups and downs.


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## D1Tremere (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> If you're just saying that the people who enforce the law expect them to follow it and might arrest them if they don't, then sure, that's true of every character. But I'm not sure how that proves anything. As you say, characters of differing alignments can feel differently about following the law, and there's nothing to indicate that a lawful good character should feel obliged to follow a law that is not good. Not to keep beating a dead horse, but their convictions are _not neutral_ on the whole "is it good?" question.
> 
> It's a bit of both, really. A character decides what ideals to espouse and what actions to perform. A paladin, in particular, chooses to swear an oath to behave in a specific way. That's what I mean by alignment selection. But the label we give the character's ideals and actions is from us, the players. A character who works as a professional assassin for a criminal cartel but sees themselves as "basically good"... isn't.
> 
> ...




I don't think this is accurate.
It depends on exactly who is defining Lawful, and who is defining Good. In this case, the god/religion a paladin follows defines these otherwise subjective cultural constructs. 
So it would be more like:
A paladin who follows and enforces the law is lawful good... if and only if the law is good to their god/religion.
A paladin who follows and enforces the spirit of the law is lawful good... if and only if the spirit of the law is good to their god/religion.
A paladin who ignores or breaks the law is lawful good... if and only if the law is not good to their god/religion.


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## zztong (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> If nothing else, these last few pages demonstrate exactly the problem with an LG paladin: nobody can agree on what LG actually means...




I'm with you that far.



shidaku said:


> ... without a code of behaviour to define the alignment.  And if we have a code of behaviour to define the alignment, shouldn't _that_ be what Paladins follow?  Which in turn would _make_ them Lawful Good?  Instead of wandering around not knowing their hinie from a hole in the ground?




And then we diverge. The previous pages, plus the endless debate being mirrored on the Paizo site, and decades of in-game debate, and... well I'm of the opinion that codes implemented in the rules of the game are as equally worthless as alignment.

Let in-game NPC organizations fret over codes of conduct. Divorce character class powers from codes and alignment. Let the NPC organizations strip you of in-game titles and benefits, but let a class be a bag of abilities.


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

zztong said:


> I'm with you that far.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Codes of conduct would be tied to NPC organizations.  Churches related to the appropriate deities.  Laws of certain Kingdoms.  To be fair, most of these codes are likely to be generic anyway.  Take 5E's codes for example.  None of them are specific to one god or another, to one nation or another and could be readily applied to almost anything with a similar vibe.  The Codes shouldn't be _specific_ such as naming names, but reasonably speaking the code of a NG Goddess of Nature would probably say something about encouraging life to bloom and respecting your environment while the Code of the LN City might say to respect your superiors, to not question the law, or something along those lines.

Frankly, if you think codes are as worthless as alignment, then your followup: "Let NPCs in game handle it" makes absolutely zero sense.  Because in that context the same can be said for alignment: let the game-world handle it.  The point is to _avoid_ that entirely.  To _avoid_ the constant "No, at my table alignment means fish!" only to in your next game find out that the DM has no idea how to handle alignment.  *Because the game gave no guidelines.* _That's_ the point.  For the game to give guidelines as to what "LG" _actually means_.  

PF2 is apparently going for a more "This is Golarion!" vibe which I'm fine with.  IF they do the appropriate world-building.  They can't say "This is Golarion!" and then just name-drop gods in our lap and expect us to be able to play in their world.

I understand some people want a very generic, everything-neutral game-playing toolkit, _but_ even while I may not be a particular fan of any published setting, including setting lore in your game is one way to differentiate your product from its competitors.  

Look at the end of the day I'm perfectly happy with _no_ alignment restrictions on any class* but my argument needs to be taken within the context of PF2 already choosing to bake in alignment with their classes.  If they're gonna do this, _they_ must define alignment.


----------



## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Where do I come to the conclusion that they are in all cases to be considered lawful good? I have given no less than five cases in which they are _not_ to be considered lawful good. Your choosing not to regard the morality of the laws is causing you to miss the point entirely.




You do so two lines down..here.



TheCosmicKid said:


> A paladin who follows and enforces the law is lawful good... _if and only if the law is good_.
> A paladin who follows and enforces the spirit of the law is lawful good... _if and only if the spirit of the law is good_.
> A paladin who ignores or breaks the law is lawful good... _if and only if the law is not good_.






TheCosmicKid said:


> In short, lawful good = wants good laws. I am not sure what part of this is getting lost between me and you.




No, what you really are saying is the lawful good paladin only cares about the good part of the law. Your screwdriver only _needs_ vodka; orange juice is optional.


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## zztong (May 12, 2018)

The notion of letting NPCs handle in-game codes is that those NPCs don't have the ability to remove character class abilities. The equivalent would be that your employer cannot strip you of your work skills. The Catholic church can excommunicate you, but they cannot take away your ability to digest food. (Well, short of torture or surgery, anyways.)

But I do get where you're coming from and you are likely to be accurately presenting Paizo's perspective. In their world, deities intervene and take away character abilities. They have every right to present it that way, and GMs have every right to make house-rules. There's no debate there. In fact, I'm not debating. I'm expressing an opinion and conveying advice -- nothing more.

My advice to Paizo is not to carry on with the lowsy tradition of alignment because that approach yields a lack of agreement that has never be resolved since it appeared in RPGs. The interpretation of alignment boils down to opinion. It will be forever inconsistently applied via GM-fiat. Similarly, codes implemented in a manner similar to alignment, will meet with the same fate.


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## D1Tremere (May 12, 2018)

zztong said:


> The notion of letting NPCs handle in-game codes is that those NPCs don't have the ability to remove character class abilities. The equivalent would be that your employer cannot strip you of your work skills. The Catholic church can excommunicate you, but they cannot take away your ability to digest food. (Well, short of torture or surgery, anyways.)
> 
> But I do get where you're coming from and you are likely to be accurately presenting Paizo's perspective. In their world, deities intervene and take away character abilities. They have every right to present it that way, and GMs have every right to make house-rules. There's no debate there. In fact, I'm not debating. I'm expressing an opinion and conveying advice -- nothing more.
> 
> My advice to Paizo is not to carry on with the lowsy tradition of alignment because that approach yields a lack of agreement that has never be resolved since it appeared in RPGs. The interpretation of alignment boils down to opinion. It will be forever inconsistently applied via GM-fiat. Similarly, codes implemented in a manner similar to alignment, will meet with the same fate.




Normally I would agree with you, but in the case of the Paladin I don't believe alignment is as subjective nor as dispensable as with other classes.


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## zztong (May 12, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Normally I would agree with you, but in the case of the Paladin I don't believe alignment is as subjective nor as dispensable as with other classes.




Certainly there are many who share your opinion, and I respect it.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I don't think this is accurate.
> It depends on exactly who is defining Lawful, and who is defining Good. In this case, the god/religion a paladin follows defines these otherwise subjective cultural constructs.



Paladins are not necessarily attached to gods or religions. Law and good are defined in the D&D Player's Handbook and PF Core Rulebook independent of such entities. Within the fiction of the game, at least, the alignments are assumed to be objective qualities. If you have some philosophical objection to that state of affairs, you can run your own campaign with a subjectivist bent, but it doesn't make what I'm saying about the standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book paladin inaccurate.


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Normally I would agree with you, but in the case of the Paladin I don't believe alignment is as subjective nor as dispensable as with other classes.




That depends on where "alignment" ranks in your world.  I'll provide some sample ranks: Cosmic (like the laws of the universe), Godly (subjective definitions but with exemplars: the gods themselves), Mortal (completely defined by mortals aka "shades of grey"
If Alignment is Cosmic, where even Gods who are LG/whatever must adhere to certain ways of acting, then no, alignment is not subjective.
-In this context, Paizo would need to define what being any Alignment means.  If at least to the degree of Colossus' "4 or 5 moments".  Here, Codes of Ethics are unnecessary because what is or isn't good is universal.  With this system, Gods become _actors_ of alignment.  When one of their followers steps out of line, the Gods do not punish him because they have violated some Godly tenents, the Gods punish them because the Gods _must_ in order for the Gods themselves to remain their respective alignment.

If Alignment is Godly, (and there is no higher Cosmic Alignment), then each God can have subjective definitions of good or evil, but there is communal consensus.  Asmodeus may consider killing angels to be a Good thing, but because most angels do good things, and most gods agree the things they do are good, Asmodeus's view is an outlier and therefore does not play into what mortals perceive as "goodness".  In this context, a God may choose whether or not to revoke the powers of one of their followers, since that God is at least, in a microcosm, defining what good and evil is for themselves.  A God _not_ revoking the powers of one of their followers may provoke the ire of other Gods.  So here a God is more likely to revoke over a violation than not in order to maintain the status quo among the gods and their agreed-upon definition of alignment.

If Alignment is Mortal (and there is no Godly or Cosmic Alignment) then a Paladin's alignment is as subjective as alignment is in real life.  One part "If there are no witnesses, it didn't happen." and one part "I can choose what parts of Alignment to follow as the situation calls for it."  In this context, Gods are likely non-interventionist except in extreme cases.  What determines if a God is good or evil is the same for humans: perception.  But a God is no more bound to revoke the powers of a Paladin over mass murder of babies than he is over jay-walking.

The problem is that there isn't a strong push in ANY edition of D&D (or Pathfinder) to say where Alignment rests.  And to make it worse, it vacillates from setting to setting.  In the Forgotten Realms, for example, non-believers are punished by having their souls imprisoned in "The Wall", a metaphysical Sarlacc Pit where their souls are digested over a thousand years.  Even ostensibly good Gods support this system.  Why?  Because the power of a God is based on their number of followers, so all the Gods got together and said: "Hey!  Lets punish all the non-believers horribly in order to maintain our power!"  What part of that sentence says "good" to _anyone_? 

In other settings, like Greyhawk, Alignment is more Cosmic.  In yet others, Alignment is more Mortal.

But yet, even in these settings, even in the rulebooks for these settings, Alignment is ill-defined.  

If we're going to have alignment restrictions, they NEED to be more wide-spread than _just_ the Paladin.  The Warlock, the Cleric, the Druid, the Monk, etc...  If alignment is Cosmic, every class should have alignment restrictions.  If alignment is Godly, then no classes should have alignment restrictions, but _characters_ would based on their Gods.  If alignment is Mortal, then alignment restrictions are meaningless.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> You do so two lines down..here.



Explain how you get from _"A paladin who follows and enforces the spirit of the law is lawful good... if and only if the spirit of the law is good"_ to _"they are in all cases to be considered lawful good"_. Because I don't see how those two sentences are equivalent in meaning at all. But what do I know? I'm only the one who wrote them.



Gammadoodler said:


> No, what you really are saying is the lawful good paladin only cares about the good part of the law.



Yes. Why is that surprising, implausible, or problematic? _They are lawful *good*._



Gammadoodler said:


> Your screwdriver only _needs_ vodka; orange juice is optional.



That doesn't follow. The paladin wants both: they want laws, and they want them to be good ones. If you serve them orange juice without vodka, they're gonna be like, "No, this isn't what I want." If you serve them vodka without orange juice, they're gonna be like, "No, this isn't what I want." But if you have a paladin who enforces the laws regardless of whether or not there's any good in them, _that's_ the version who's drinking the orange juice regardless of whether or not there's any vodka in it.


----------



## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Paladins are not necessarily attached to gods or religions. Law and good are defined in the D&D Player's Handbook and PF Core Rulebook independent of such entities. Within the fiction of the game, at least, the alignments are assumed to be *objective qualities*. If you have some philosophical objection to that state of affairs, you can run your own campaign with a subjectivist bent, but it doesn't make what I'm saying about the standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book paladin inaccurate.




Bolded for emphasis: the problem with this argument is that even if that were true, which I would happily argue it is not, _alignments are not defined_.

Objective qualities of reality can be measured, quantified, and detailed.  Especially ones that affect your day-to-day living.  

But the books provide no details on what Good, Evil, Law, Chaos or Neutrality mean.  Do the Lawful follow every law, regardless?  Do the Good do what they think is right, or what someone else thinks?  Do the Neutral worry about Cosmic Balance, or do they just not give a doop?  Do the Chaotic _ignore_ the law all the time, or only when they feel like it?  Do the Evil murder babies?  Or just work to gain power for themselves?

If the "standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book" alignment is truly objective, why does the book not _actually define alignments_?


----------



## mellored (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Paladins are not necessarily attached to gods or religions. Law and good are defined in the D&D Player's Handbook and PF Core Rulebook independent of such entities. Within the fiction of the game, at least, the alignments are assumed to be objective qualities. If you have some philosophical objection to that state of affairs, you can run your own campaign with a subjectivist bent, but it doesn't make what I'm saying about the standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book paladin inaccurate.



But why does lawful good = fighter + holy magic?

I mean, I get the desire for a fighter+holy magic class.
And I get the desire for lawful good.

I just don't see why they are connected.


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## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Bolded for emphasis: the problem with this argument is that even if that were true, which I would happily argue it is not, _alignments are not defined_.
> 
> Objective qualities of reality can be measured, quantified, and detailed.  Especially ones that affect your day-to-day living.
> 
> ...




So all of this is mostly true (and sort of what I've been getting at all along). But in at least the 5E handbook, there is some level of definition (pg. 122) for each of the combinations of attributes. 

However, it's also kinda useless, and not at all objective. For example, LG creatures "_can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society._"


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## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> ...even if that were true, which I would happily argue it is not...



_*glances at Planescape*_

Good luck with that!



shidaku said:


> Objective qualities of reality can be measured, quantified, and detailed.  Especially ones that affect your day-to-day living.



That is not what it means to be objective, and it is not necessarily true of objective qualities. I don't want to get too deep into the weeds of metaphysics here, but... no.



shidaku said:


> But the books provide no details on what Good, Evil, Law, Chaos or Neutrality mean.  Do the Lawful follow every law, regardless?  Do the Good do what they think is right, or what someone else thinks?  Do the Neutral worry about Cosmic Balance, or do they just not give a doop?  Do the Chaotic _ignore_ the law all the time, or only when they feel like it?  Do the Evil murder babies?  Or just work to gain power for themselves?



Do mammals walk on two legs, or four? Do birds have long necks, or short? Do fish live in salt water, or fresh?



shidaku said:


> If the "standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book" alignment is truly objective, why does the book not _actually define alignments_?



It does, though. By your logic, that a definition must provide exacting detail on every usage and circumstance, dictionaries don't define words.


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> So all of this is mostly true (and sort of what I've been getting at all along). But in at least the 5E handbook, there is some level of definition (pg. 122) for each of the combinations of attributes.
> 
> However, it's also kinda useless, and not at all objective. For example, LG creatures "_can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society._"




RIGHT!?  And therein lies the problem.  We've got a competing Cosmic and Mortal definition.  Who cares if Bobby thinks you're a good guy when what matters is you adhere to Cosmic Alignment?  But yet, there it is.  Bobby thinking you're a mean old bad guy for arresting his near-do-well kid holds just as much water as the fundamental aspects of time and space and alignment!

And this is why we're here.  In yet another argument about LG Paladins.  Because games think it's "classic" or "traditional" or "the best" to make Paladins LG...but then fail to actually provide any support for what _being_ Lawful Good entails.


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## zztong (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> If Alignment is Mortal (and there is no Godly or Cosmic Alignment) then a Paladin's alignment is as subjective as alignment is in real life.  One part "If there are no witnesses, it didn't happen." and one part "I can choose what parts of Alignment to follow as the situation calls for it."  In this context, Gods are likely non-interventionist except in extreme cases.  What determines if a God is good or evil is the same for humans: perception.  But a God is no more bound to revoke the powers of a Paladin over mass murder of babies than he is over jay-walking.




And, of course, another variation on your "Alignment is Mortal" category... Gods are only legends, they don't really exist. "Divine" powers are really just slightly different "Arcane" powers. Religions exist, but they are entirely creations of man based on a combination of ignorance of the vast material universe and social need and/or greed.

Indeed, "Atheist" is a choice if you use Hero Lab, though Paizo redefined it to be that the believer rejects the notion the gods are truly divine, which is much more in line with your post.


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> That is not what it means to be objective, and it is not necessarily true of objective qualities. I don't want to get too deep into the weeds of metaphysics here, but... no.



Tough, that's what objective means.  You brought it up.  Either back it up or admit your argument is indefensible.  

Also, Objectivity and Rationality are _objectively_ at odds with metaphysics.  Don't bring metaphysical relativism to a rational objectivity debate.  



> Do mammals walk on two legs, or four? Do birds have long necks, or short? Do fish live in salt water, or fresh?



Animals aren't moral codes.  Good is either good, or is it something else.  Good cannot be both Cosmicly Objective and ill-defined.  



> It does, though. By your logic, that a definition must provide exacting detail on every usage and circumstance, dictionaries don't define words.



 Providing _exacting_ detail is not required.  Providing _some_ detail is.  The books provide _no_ detail.

Your example of one offshoot of D&D that is regularly regarded as this kinda of weird kid brother that it is is insufficient.  There have been no less than 5 editions of D&D.  (more if you count half-editions and variant editions) countless spinoffs like Pathfinder and you know what the *overwhelming majority* of them have in common?

No definition of the Alignment System.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

mellored said:


> But why does lawful good = fighter + holy magic?
> 
> I mean, I get the desire for a fighter+holy magic class.
> And I get the desire for lawful good.
> ...



Because Christian European cultural heritage. Holy is good and perhaps lawful, oathbound knights are hella lawful, ergo, lawful good paladin.

Feel free to expand the holy warrior to other alignments and ideologies. 4E and 5E did, and I certainly do. But there's nothing wrong with the classics either.


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## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Explain how you get from _"A paladin who follows and enforces the spirit of the law is lawful good... if and only if the spirit of the law is good"_ to _"they are in all cases to be considered lawful good"_. Because I don't see how those two sentences are equivalent in meaning at all. But what do I know? I'm only the one who wrote them.




Sure thing. You had 3 options 2 of which directly conflict with each other (1. Follow the law and 3. Ignore/break the law), and all 3 of them were permissible to a lawful good character _if good_. Note that specifically, one of these options (3. Ignore/break the law) *is not lawful *by literal definition.



TheCosmicKid said:


> Yes. Why is that surprising, implausible, or problematic? _They are *good*._




Fixed that for you.



TheCosmicKid said:


> That doesn't follow. The paladin wants both: they want laws, and they want them to be good ones. If you serve them orange juice without vodka, they're gonna be like, "No, this isn't what I want." If you serve them vodka without orange juice, they're gonna be like, "No, this isn't what I want." But if you have a paladin who enforces the laws regardless of whether or not there's any good in them, _that's_ the version who's drinking the orange juice regardless of whether or not there's any vodka in it.




#3. (Ignore/break the laws) is all vodka no orange juice, and your paladin drank it anyway.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Tough, that's what objective means.  You brought it up.  Either back it up or admit your argument is indefensible.



Because of our physical limits and fallibility as humans, not all objective facts about the universe are accessible to our observation. The truth does not begin and end with what we can perceive.



shidaku said:


> Also, Objectivity and Rationality are objectively at odds with metaphysics. Don't bring metaphysical relativism to a rational objectivity debate.



I'm sorry I used the M-word, Dr. Wittgenstein. I meant to say "questions about the nature of fact and reality that are definitely not metaphysics, no sirree, no metaphysics here".



shidaku said:


> Animals aren't moral codes.  Good is either good, or is it something else.  Good cannot be both Cosmicly Objective and ill-defined.



And yet your method for illustrating what you claim to be a problem in the definition of the alignments serves just as well to "prove" a problem in the definition of animal clades.



shidaku said:


> Providing _exacting_ detail is not required.  Providing _some_ detail is.  The books provide _no_ detail.
> 
> Your example of one offshoot of D&D that is regularly regarded as this kinda of weird kid brother that it is is insufficient.  There have been no less than 5 editions of D&D.  (more if you count half-editions and variant editions) countless spinoffs like Pathfinder and you know what the *overwhelming majority* of them have in common?
> 
> No definition of the Alignment System.



There is a page in every edition of the PHB that looks something like "*Lawful Good:* [definition] / *Neutral Good:* [definition] / *Chaotic Good:* [definition]" and so on. What you are saying is simply at odds with the facts. If you don't _like_ the definitions, fine. But don't deny they're there.


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## D1Tremere (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Paladins are not necessarily attached to gods or religions. Law and good are defined in the D&D Player's Handbook and PF Core Rulebook independent of such entities. Within the fiction of the game, at least, the alignments are assumed to be objective qualities. If you have some philosophical objection to that state of affairs, you can run your own campaign with a subjectivist bent, but it doesn't make what I'm saying about the standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book paladin inaccurate.




You are correct. I forgot that officially they are divorced from such things, largely due to the fact that they make no sense without some form of divine patron being expressly stated (given that said unnamed force can remove their powers).
Regardless, the definitions would then be set by whatever faction/force/Etc. that defines their code. In other words, that which defines your code (and grants your powers) ultimately judges.


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## D1Tremere (May 12, 2018)

shidaku said:


> That depends on where "alignment" ranks in your world.  I'll provide some sample ranks: Cosmic (like the laws of the universe), Godly (subjective definitions but with exemplars: the gods themselves), Mortal (completely defined by mortals aka "shades of grey"
> If Alignment is Cosmic, where even Gods who are LG/whatever must adhere to certain ways of acting, then no, alignment is not subjective.
> -In this context, Paizo would need to define what being any Alignment means.  If at least to the degree of Colossus' "4 or 5 moments".  Here, Codes of Ethics are unnecessary because what is or isn't good is universal.  With this system, Gods become _actors_ of alignment.  When one of their followers steps out of line, the Gods do not punish him because they have violated some Godly tenents, the Gods punish them because the Gods _must_ in order for the Gods themselves to remain their respective alignment.
> 
> ...




I see Paladins as being different from the other classes in this case, due to the fact that both the concept and their powers are tied to a specific other's interpretation of their alignment.


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## Gammadoodler (May 12, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> There is a page in every edition of the PHB that looks something like "*Lawful Good:* [definition] / *Neutral Good:* [definition] / *Chaotic Good:* [definition]" and so on. What you are saying is simply at odds with the facts. If you don't _like_ the definitions, fine. But don't deny they're there.




You have, of course, read these definitions and agree with their clarity, utility, and that they are consistent with how you've applied them?


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## Yaarel (May 13, 2018)

There is like what? 10 posts about armor and paladin features?

And over 140 posts about debates about alignment?

This is exactly why D&D becomes a better game by eliminating alignment from D&D mechanics.

Debates about alignment are too contentious and too situational. It is an area where DM adjudication disregards reallife value systems of players. Thus DM adjudication in this case is a problem − the opposite of a solution.

Alignment belongs in the personality description in the character sheet. It is a narrative for each player to decide for their character on the players own value system.



Maybe it is possible to create a game that models ethical views and respective challenges. But D&D has never been that game. (For one thing, it is a game that rewards *killing* with advancement! It could never model an ethical good.) D&D mechanics cant handle alignment mechanics.


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## pemerton (May 13, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> So, "Here's what I think a paladin is". "RPG paladins may vary from this description"."Who cares?"



Well, I didn't force you to reply to my post - but apprently you care enough to do so!



Gammadoodler said:


> Is it odd to assume that a character seeking to adhere absolutely to a set of idealized values in a less then ideal world would have to be some combination of foolish, naive, utopian, etc.?



If you assume that paladins are, per se, foolish, naive, uptopian etc then yes, you either simply allow that they will fail, or - as PF2 seems to - you build that into the code.

Personally I don't see the attraction of playing, or GMing, a paladin under such an assumption. I mean, when a player wants to play a thief do we build into our starting assumptions for the game that _crime doesn't pay_? When a player wants to play a fighter, do we build into our starting assumption that _one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword_?


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## pemerton (May 13, 2018)

mellored said:


> The paladin then tracks down the assassin, and finds the assassin on a rope bridge over a volcano with a new born baby on his back.
> The paladin can cut the brige, sending both the assassin and baby to their doom, or let the assasin escape (the assasin will cut the bridge when he reaches the other side).
> 
> He has to act fast before the assassin escapes again.  He can kill both, or let the asssassin escape.  What does he do?



This is drifting into first year moral philosophy territory. Can the paladin push the fat man over the edge of the bridge to stop the runaway trolley killing five people?

But no one thinks you can kill the innocent man to save one person. And in your story the assassin isn't about to kill someone, so killing the baby wouldn't even be directly saving a life.

So the answer seems fairly straightforward.

Of course, in the context of a FRPG adventure, the paladin player should be looking for another way out, and - because it is a FRPG - such a way might be possible.


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## pemerton (May 13, 2018)

In Gygax's  AD&D rulebooks, alignment is defined with some degree of clarity. (There are also contradictory bits.)

Good = honouring rights, promoting both individual and collective welfare, respecting and promoting truth and beauty. Nothing is said about how to handle clashes between these values, should they come up - so when it comes to a paladin confronting a runaway trolley and a fat man on a bridge, the rules have nothing to say.

Evil = indifference to, or active contempt towards, those values. "Purpose is the determinant" ie the ends justify the means, _whatever_ the means and no matter how self-regarding the end.

Law = a belief in the power of social order, Chaos = a belief in the power of self-realising individuals.

So LG = the values of good are best realised collectively through social order. CG = the values of good are best realised through self-realisation.

On the other hand, LE believe that the best way to pursue their goals, without being restrained/constrained by those who think that values like rights, wellbeing, truth and beauty, is by collective, organised action. Whereas CE think that self-realisation is the only way to get what you want, and organisation is just a hindrance.

The disagreements aren't purely aesthetic, and obviously not all these people can be correct: if CG are right, then social organisation is a threat precisely because it enables LE. If LG are right, then criticisms of and attacks on social organisation pave the way for CE villains to dominate the world.

LN is something like a fallen version of LG - so concerned about establishing and maintaining order that they puruse it even when it burdens rather than fosters wellbeing, truth, beauty, etc. CN is, similarly, a "fallen" version of CG - so concerned about the primacy of self-realisation that they don't acknowledge the need to orient it towards those same values.

NG is something like CG-lite; and NE is something like CE-lite. I don't think they add much to the AD&D set-up.

I think that the PHB Appendix IV, and then more obviously Planescape , 3E and 5e depart from the above in various ways that reduce the coherence of the basic set-up. In particular, the idea is put forward that the various alignments can all be correct - or to put it differently, that they are about valuing and promoting different things; rather than that LG and CG ultimately value the same thing but disagree about what will conduce to them.


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## D1Tremere (May 13, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> There is like what? 10 posts about armor and paladin features?
> 
> And over 140 posts about debates about alignment?
> 
> ...




I tend to agree with this, except in the case of the Paladin. A Paladin operating on a deontological framework isn't concerned with situational ethics. They have a job to do, and the person/god/organization/etc. that serves as their center defines those concepts for them in an operational manner. You could take that out of the Paladin, but then it losses the defining elements as I see it.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 13, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Sure thing. You had 3 options 2 of which directly conflict with each other (1. Follow the law and 3. Ignore/break the law), and all 3 of them were permissible to a lawful good character _if good_. Note that specifically, one of these options (3. Ignore/break the law) *is not lawful *by literal definition.
> 
> Fixed that for you.
> 
> #3. (Ignore/break the laws) is all vodka no orange juice, and your paladin drank it anyway.



Okay. Let's back up a minute. There's a recurring pattern in our conversation: I propose an interpretation of lawful goodness which allows paladins to function, and then you impose different definitions on the scenario (often, as here, by putting words in my mouth) which create contradiction and dysfunction. Why? What are you hoping to accomplish here? Are you trying to persuade me that I should abandon an interpretation that works for an one that doesn't? Why would I do that? And why would you _want_ me to do that? If your readings of "law" and "good" break the system, should you really be so insistent that those readings are the correct ones? If you're really interested in this problem, wouldn't it make more sense to give a good-faith effort at understanding how I've resolved it?

Concrete example: paladin opposes an evil law.

_You_ say that the paladin is drinking straight vodka.
_I_ say that the paladin is rejecting the orange juice they've been served, and insisting on a screwdriver.

Your interpretation renders the lawful good alignment impossible: the paladin ends up either neutral good or lawful neutral (at best). My interpretation preserves lawful goodness as a coherent concept. So what is there to recommend your interpretation? Why are you trying to twist my words into something which, as you are not just _conceding_ but loudly _promoting_, does not make sense?


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## TheCosmicKid (May 13, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Of course, in the context of a FRPG adventure, the paladin player should be looking for another way out, and - because it is a FRPG - such a way might be possible.



Rope bridges are made of ropes. The true purpose of ropes is to facilitate dramatic swinging rescues. QED.


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## barasawa (May 13, 2018)

Touch AC was created so mages, who's attacks totally suck, could ignore foes armor and at least have a chance for their touch spells to actually work. 
I'm not so sure reversing that, even if not completely, is such a good idea.


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## Kurviak (May 13, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Paladins are not necessarily attached to gods or religions. Law and good are defined in the D&D Player's Handbook and PF Core Rulebook independent of such entities. Within the fiction of the game, at least, the alignments are assumed to be objective qualities. If you have some philosophical objection to that state of affairs, you can run your own campaign with a subjectivist bent, but it doesn't make what I'm saying about the standard-issue, straight-out-of-the-book paladin inaccurate.




In Golarion they are, and PF2 is attached to golarion. In the other hand I expect LG people in general to follow and respect neutral laws and not only good laws.


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## Yaarel (May 13, 2018)

barasawa said:


> Touch AC was created so mages, who's attacks totally suck, could ignore foes armor and at least have a chance for their touch spells to actually work.
> I'm not so sure reversing that, even if not completely, is such a good idea.




The game is simpler without touch AC. 5e lacks it, and I have never missed it.

The easiest solution is to write spells that dont require touch attacks. Close range (within 30 feet) is fine enough. Within 10 feet is enough to represent melee reach.


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## D1Tremere (May 13, 2018)

Paladins, being tied to alignment more so than other classes, CAN break the law while remaining lawful. The definition of lawful includes obedience to authority, not following every law. To a Paladin there can be no greater authority than whatever force defines their code. The only law they have to follow is that of the authority they recognize, their god/patron/lord/lady/etc.


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## mellored (May 13, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The game is simpler without touch AC. 5e lacks it, and I have never missed it.
> 
> The easiest solution is to write spells that dont require touch attacks. Close range (within 30 feet) is fine enough. Within 10 feet is enough to represent melee reach.



agreed.

If anything, just have armor add to Dex saves, damage reduction, or something like that.


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## Sunseeker (May 13, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Paladins, being tied to alignment more so than other classes, CAN break the law while remaining lawful. The definition of lawful includes obedience to authority, not following every law. To a Paladin there can be no greater authority than whatever force defines their code. The only law they have to follow is that of the authority they recognize, their god/patron/lord/lady/etc.




But that begs the question: do Paladins get to _choose_ which authority they recognize?  

I'd argue that the history of Paladins in play and the perpetuation of "lawful stupid" means that Paladins are not usually granted this option.


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## D1Tremere (May 13, 2018)

shidaku said:


> But that begs the question: do Paladins get to _choose_ which authority they recognize?
> 
> I'd argue that the history of Paladins in play and the perpetuation of "lawful stupid" means that Paladins are not usually granted this option.




By the rules they do. You choose your god/patron/lord/lady/etc. when you create the character. That is your authority. They make the rules, and they are the only being that can punish you for disobeying by removing your power.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 13, 2018)

shidaku said:


> But that begs the question: do Paladins get to _choose_ which authority they recognize?
> 
> I'd argue that the history of Paladins in play and the perpetuation of "lawful stupid" means that Paladins are not usually granted this option.



Even if they do not, even if there is a one-size-fits-all paladin oath a la 2E, that only means all the more that they cannot choose to follow a local law if that law conflicts with their oath.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 13, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The game is simpler without touch AC. 5e lacks it, and I have never missed it.
> 
> The easiest solution is to write spells that dont require touch attacks. Close range (within 30 feet) is fine enough. Within 10 feet is enough to represent melee reach.



5E has touch AC, it's just hiding. "Touch attacks" like rust monster antennae call for Dex saves instead of attack rolls. I'd prefer the game unify all "does it hit you?" questions into a single "Dexterity defense" and turn armor into damage reduction, but that idea has never really gained traction in D&D or its offshoots.


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## Yaarel (May 13, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> 5E has touch AC, it's just hiding. "Touch attacks" like rust monster antennae call for Dex saves instead of attack rolls. I'd prefer the game unify all "does it hit you?" questions into a single "Dexterity defense" and turn armor into damage reduction, but that idea has never really gained traction in D&D or its offshoots.




I would want this kind of ‘dexterity’ to more clearly cover mobility − jump, climb, run. But one ability score can cover all of it.


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## Yaarel (May 13, 2018)

I want all of the ability scores to be comparably useful in power and frequency. Towards this, I prefer the abilities simplify into four clusters.

*Athletics *(Strength, Reflex, Gymnastics, Jump, Climb, Speed, Melee Accuracy)
*Toughness *(Size, Fortitude, Melee Damage, Heavy Equipment, Hit Points, Carrying)
*Perceptiveness *(Perception, Knowledge, Stealth, Steady Hand)
*Empathy *(Willpower, Charm, Social Skills, Esthetics, Luck)

In this arrangement, the Athletic defense covers all AC. Tough might allow a bigger armor bonus to that AC.

Athletic also handles all melee attacks, whether punch, dagger, sword, or greatsword. Tough adds damage, and might allow a heavy weapon.


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## pemerton (May 14, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Concrete example: paladin opposes an evil law.



Just a thought: I think a paladin will be arguing that the evil "law" isn't really one, or has been misunderstood/misapplied.


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## Parmandur (May 14, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Just a thought: I think a paladin will be arguing that the evil "law" isn't really one, or has been misunderstood/misapplied.



"Lex iniusta non est lex" seems a fairly Paladin-ish point of view, moreso than an odd programming language construct to avoid trolley scenarios.


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## pemerton (May 14, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> "Lex iniusta non est lex" seems a fairly Paladin-ish point of view, moreso than an odd programming language construct to avoid trolley scenarios.



To add to this: how is law "made", and "found", in D&D worlds? Given that they tend towards the pseudo-mediaeval rather than the modern, and are often fairly romanticised on top of that, ideas of cutsom, useage, tradition, etc seem more apposite than looking up the latest amendments to the statute book and the register of legislative instruments.

Which feeds into the possibility of arguing for misunderstanding and/or misapplication of the law. It's not about loopholes, which already presuppose a type of interpretive approach which seems out of place.


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## Shasarak (May 14, 2018)

mellored said:


> Just to continue the scenario...
> 
> The kid turns out to be an assassins in disguised, who poisioned the queens bath water.  The queen is now dead because the paladin chose to ignore the law.
> The king tells the paladin to hunt down and kill the assassin at all cost.
> ...




Well if there is a rope bridge over a volcano, and the DM has his rope bridge over the volcano flip map open on the table then I guess that means I am charging onto the bridge to have a climatic fight with an Assassin.


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## Shasarak (May 14, 2018)

pemerton said:


> NG is something like CG-lite; and NE is something like CE-lite. I don't think they add much to the AD&D set-up.




Man, I would disagree with that definition.  NG and NE are not lite anything.  They are respectfully either the most Good or most Evil alignment because they dont need to worry about the Law-Chaos axis when asking "What is the most Good (or Evil) thing to do".


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## pemerton (May 14, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Man, I would disagree with that definition.  NG and NE are not lite anything.  They are respectfully either the most Good or most Evil alignment because they dont need to worry about the Law-Chaos axis when asking "What is the most Good (or Evil) thing to do".



Well, this is an example of what I have in mind when I say that later ideas, and even aspects of the AD&D books themselves, undermine the coherence of what Gygax puts forward.

As Gygax presents it in the Alignment sections of the PHB (around about p 30) and DMG (around about p 20), LE and CE aren't commitments to anything, let alone commitments to two, potentially competing, schemes of value (Law/Chaos, and Evil). Rather, LE = _I think that social organisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them_; CE = _I think individual self-realisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them_. Both a LE and a CE are maximally evil, in the sense that neither accepts values such as rights, wellbing, truth, beauty, etc as a constraint on action. What they disagree on is social theory.

The approach you seem to prefer - that (say) a LE person is committed _both_ to scorning/overturning truth, beauty, welfare etc _and_ to pursuing promoting order - is something that I think is found in AD&D Appendix IV and then really comes into its own in Planescape.

I have to admit I don't really understand it. For instance, this approach implies that when a NG person says to a LG person, "You're not doing as much good as you good", the LG person has to agree: "You're correct - I'm trading off some good against some law". I'm not even sure what this is really meant to mean.

Whereas under the approach I've set out, when a NG person says to a LG person, "You're not doing as much good as you good", the LG person can retort: "On the contrary, your wishy-washiness about upholding social institutions undermines the good by reducing the extent to which welfare, truth, beauty and respect for rights are upheld and promoted." That makes more sense to me.


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## Yaarel (May 14, 2018)

Heh, I hate to get sucked into the blackhole of alignment disputes. But, 

Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.



Really, the alignments deserve to be called:

True Good, True Neutral, True Evil.
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil.



Anyway, at this point, I will try escape the gravitational pull of the blackhole, and hope to avoid responding to any alignment debates.


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## zztong (May 14, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Heh, I hate to get sucked into the blackhole of alignment disputes. But, Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.




I've always thought this way too, but it isn't the majority opinion in an alignment discussion. Yes, to me, it always seemed that if I were going to require an alignment for a Paladin, that NG seemed like the obvious choice.


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## pemerton (May 14, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.



This analysis is premised on the notion that LG is false ie that social order/organisation is not the best way to realise human rights, welfare, truth, beauty etc.

If LG is correct, then _it_ is the "purest" good possible! (And mutatuis mutandis for CG.)

I don't think it makes much sense for the alignment system to rest on a premise that most of the alignments are _mistaken_ about what they claim. It should be possible to present the system in a way that doesn't such a premise. The AD&D framing that Gygax presents (ignoring Appendix IV) does this.


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## mellored (May 14, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> 5E has touch AC, it's just hiding. "Touch attacks" like rust monster antennae call for Dex saves instead of attack rolls.



IMO, the attacker should always roll the d20.  Not have different people roll based on whether it's a lighting bolt of lighting or a crossbow bolt.   It was one of the good ideas in 4e.

i.e.
Fireball is 1d20+Int+stuff vs 10+Dex+stuff.  (or maybe Dex score + stuff).
Hold Person is 1d20+Int+stuff vs 10+Wis+stuff.
Ect...


But really, there's already 8 number to keep track of (HP, AC, Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha), no need to add TAC on top of it.


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## Gammadoodler (May 14, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Well, I didn't force you to reply to my post - but apprently you care enough to do so!




I apologize, this likely came off more brusquely than intended. I was intending this as a question regarding whether you, personally, truly do not care. I ask because from the tone of your posts, it seems like you do.



pemerton said:


> If you assume that paladins are, per se, foolish, naive, uptopian etc then yes, you either simply allow that they will fail, or - as PF2 seems to - you build that into the code.
> 
> Personally I don't see the attraction of playing, or GMing, a paladin under such an assumption. I mean, when a player wants to play a thief do we build into our starting assumptions for the game that _crime doesn't pay_? When a player wants to play a fighter, do we build into our starting assumption that _one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword_?




I think those assumptions are fairly normal starting assumptions for most normal settings. I've not seen a game where a thief will commit crimes at random without fear of consequences. Likewise I've not seen fighters enter games under the assumption that they can put villages to the sword without consequences. In point of fact, D&D adventuring parties are often conscripted to reinforce the validity of those very assumptions ("Kill these bandits who are harassing travelers and tradesmen on the road" is a fairly vanilla quest for a D&D adventuring party). For all three of these, it's not about the presumption of failure, it's about the possibility of failure and the presence of consequences for good or ill. 

As it applies to paladins, the notion that you and others have put forward is that they are fundamentally romantic characters. Definitionally, romantic characters are at their core idealistic (heck, Merriam-Webster definitions for "romantic" include "[FONT=&quot]having no basis in fact" and "[/FONT][FONT=&quot]impractical in conception or plan")[/FONT]. Presumably they don't live in ideal worlds, or there would be no need for adventurers. Thus, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for there to be situations that test, strain, or otherwise jeopardize the belief-system of the paladin. Heroes don't _always_ have to win and it's frequently more interesting when they don't. 

To be clear, I'm not saying all paladins should always be morally compromised or that they should always lose. I get that accomplishing impossible things_ is heroic_ and part of the reason for playing RPGs. But there is no triumph without adversity, and I fail to see why a paladin's beliefs _need_ to be excluded from consideration for such adversity.


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## Yaarel (May 14, 2018)

zztong said:


> I've always thought this way too, but it isn't the majority opinion in an alignment discussion. Yes, to me, it always seemed that if I were going to require an alignment for a Paladin, that NG seemed like the obvious choice.




The difference between chaotic and lawful, is the classic debate of, the one versus the many.

• The many of law, is society, collectivism, enforcing merit.
• The one of chaos, is personhood, individualism, compassion for its own sake.

The optimal Good is optimizing between them. Sometimes siding with the individual over the collective is the Good thing to do.

True Good (Neutral Good) *always* chooses whatever is *most* Good in any situation.



Law and Chaos are like Yang (collectivism) and Yin (individualism), respectively.

The Dao that optimizes between Yang and Yin, is the highest Good. It is a path that transcends the opposites.


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## Yaarel (May 14, 2018)

The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.

Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.



By contrast, True Good (pure Good, Neutral Good) never compromises Good.


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## Gammadoodler (May 14, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Okay. Let's back up a minute. There's a recurring pattern in our conversation: I propose an interpretation of lawful goodness which allows paladins to function, and then you impose different definitions on the scenario (often, as here, by putting words in my mouth) which create contradiction and dysfunction. Why? What are you hoping to accomplish here? Are you trying to persuade me that I should abandon an interpretation that works for an one that doesn't? Why would I do that? And why would you _want_ me to do that? If your readings of "law" and "good" break the system, should you really be so insistent that those readings are the correct ones? If you're really interested in this problem, wouldn't it make more sense to give a good-faith effort at understanding how I've resolved it?
> 
> Concrete example: paladin opposes an evil law.
> 
> ...




My objection, such as it is, is that the understanding of a Lawful Good paladin that you propose makes it indistinguishable from any other good-aligned paladin. And it further leads to strange comparisons; that dashing rogue that steals from the corrupt wealthy nobles and gives to the oppressed poor: Chaotic Good; switch in a dashing paladin performing the same actions: Lawful Good (because they follow a transcendent law).

I think where I differ with you is that I don't see a _need_ for any particular character concept to be coherent at all times. Real people are frequently incoherent, I see no reason characters can't be as well. They needn't always be that way, and I'm perfectly prepared to agree that laws often achieve justice and good often results. That said, it seems odd to me to handwave away any existence of tension between lawfulness and goodness which might motivate the LG paladin (or any other LG character) to act against some component of their normal alignment.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 14, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> My objection, such as it is, is that the understanding of a Lawful Good paladin that you propose makes it indistinguishable from any other good-aligned paladin. And it further leads to strange comparisons; that dashing rogue that steals from the corrupt wealthy nobles and gives to the oppressed poor: Chaotic Good; switch in a dashing paladin performing the same actions: Lawful Good (because they follow a transcendent law).



How are they indistinguishable? Because they make the same basic choice under one specific circumstance? I don't think that is so outlandish. A chaotic good character and a lawful good character are probably both going to obey a law against murder, too; the chaotic good guy isn't going to feel some urge to kill just because laws are bad. It doesn't follow from this that they will make the same choice in _every_ circumstance, or that even when they do make the same choice, their means and overall goals are the same. When faced with a corrupt law that must be opposed, your dashing rogue is more likely to oppose it through outlaw behavior, whereas your dashing paladin? Probably something more like what today we would call civil disobedience. The details are going to depend on the particular character, of course.



Gammadoodler said:


> I think where I differ with you is that I don't see a _need_ for any particular character concept to be coherent at all times. Real people are frequently incoherent, I see no reason characters can't be as well. They needn't always be that way, and I'm perfectly prepared to agree that laws often achieve justice and good often results. That said, it seems odd to me to handwave away any existence of tension between lawfulness and goodness which might motivate the LG paladin (or any other LG character) to act against some component of their normal alignment.



I'd ask what you think it means to hold an alignment. To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole. Whatever tension you think might be there has been resolved at least to _their_ satisfaction; if it were not, they would be neutral good or lawful neutral. Yeah, of course there are going to be situations where figuring out what the right thing to do is difficult, but they're not going to be as obvious, or as blatantly a matter of law vs. good, as "What if evil law?" I hardly think it's a handwave to give the paladin credit for having figured that one out already.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 14, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.
> 
> Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.



The classic (_i.e._, 2E) paladin falls permanently and irrevocably if they ever commit an evil act, but can atone if they commit a chaotic act. So compromise of any sort is highly discouraged, but if any compromising does occur, it's gonna be in favor of good.


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## The Crimson Binome (May 14, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The classic paladin is Lawful Good, lawful to a fault.
> 
> Sometimes the Good gets compromised for the sake of ‘order’.
> 
> ...



As I see it, Lawful Good sees the law as the best path toward maximizing good within the world. A Lawful Good paladin will generally _not_ sacrifice Good in the name of Law, since the whole point of being lawful is to encourage goodness; and the ones who _do_ put the law _ahead_ of the good, are the ones who become prime examples of Lawful Stupid.

Really, the whole Good-Evil axis is all about your goals, and the Law-Chaos axis is about your methods. At least, that's how I see it.


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## Gammadoodler (May 15, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> How are they indistinguishable? Because they make the same basic choice under one specific circumstance? I don't think that is so outlandish. A chaotic good character and a lawful good character are probably both going to obey a law against murder, too; the chaotic good guy isn't going to feel some urge to kill just because laws are bad. It doesn't follow from this that they will make the same choice in _every_ circumstance, or that even when they do make the same choice, their means and overall goals are the same. When faced with a corrupt law that must be opposed, your dashing rogue is more likely to oppose it through outlaw behavior, whereas your dashing paladin? Probably something more like what today we would call civil disobedience. The details are going to depend on the particular character, of course.




It's that both the lawful good and chaotic good paladin are similarly unconstrained by societal constructs (traditional law and the attendant expectations that come with it) and both justify their freedom from  constraint by claiming adherence to their alignment. The chaotic good paladin can say, I "go my own way, a better way". The lawful good paladin can say "I follow a higher law". But to an outsider, they're both just folks who aren't doing what they've been told. 

As far as methodologies, as you said, that is going to be character and situation specific. The point is that, as it's been presented, the lawful good paladin may take any action a chaotic good or neutral good paladin would take, using the exact same methodologies, go with a "higher law" rationale, and hey..still lawful. This is where "indistinguishable" comes from. Where are the sticking points, as you see them? 



TheCosmicKid said:


> I'd ask what you think it means to hold an alignment. To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole. Whatever tension you think might be there has been resolved at least to _their_ satisfaction; if it were not, they would be neutral good or lawful neutral. Yeah, of course there are going to be situations where figuring out what the right thing to do is difficult, but they're not going to be as obvious, or as blatantly a matter of law vs. good, as "What if evil law?" I hardly think it's a handwave to give the paladin credit for having figured that one out already.




I see alignment as descriptive of a character's motivations and actions from the perspective of external parties, specifically some combination of other characters in the world, and the players and DM at the table. The character's internal synthesis of their ideology is functional rationalization. It may be reasonably consistent with how others in the game world view them, if the character possesses the requisite powers of self-reflection, or it may not. 

Separately, while I'd quibble with the notion of giving the romantic muscly guy who swings a shining sword credit for "figuring stuff out", the original point of the dilemma, as presented by [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION] was simply looking forward to finding the behavioral margins for LG paladins if all paladins in PF2 are going to be required to hold that alignment. And thus far, it seems to be your position that those margins do not exist. I happen to think that's kind of a strange.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> To me, if a paladin is both lawful and good, that tells me that they hold an ideology that has synthesized those two values into a single whole.



Well, it seems to me that they have a set of values they're committed to - wellbeing, rights, truth, beauty - and they also have a belief about how those values can be realised - namely, via establishing social organisation, respecting tradition, etc.


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## D1Tremere (May 15, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Heh, I hate to get sucked into the blackhole of alignment disputes. But,
> 
> Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.
> 
> ...




There really can't be a purest good, as good is subjective. Shaped by cultural normatives and personal bias. Even in D&D/Pathfinder the guidelines are general, leaving the particulars of any situation highly subjective.
That is the case for everyone except Paladins, because their class existence hinges on a very specific definition/interpretation as imposed by who/whatever grants their power.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 15, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> It's that both the lawful good and chaotic good paladin are similarly unconstrained by societal constructs (traditional law and the attendant expectations that come with it) and both justify their freedom from  constraint by claiming adherence to their alignment. The chaotic good paladin can say, I "go my own way, a better way". The lawful good paladin can say "I follow a higher law". But to an outsider, they're both just folks who aren't doing what they've been told.
> 
> As far as methodologies, as you said, that is going to be character and situation specific. The point is that, as it's been presented, the lawful good paladin may take any action a chaotic good or neutral good paladin would take, using the exact same methodologies, go with a "higher law" rationale, and hey..still lawful. This is where "indistinguishable" comes from. Where are the sticking points, as you see them?



 You're only looking at the paladin's actions in one specific circumstance. There may be other circumstances where the differences are more obvious. For example, when confronted with a law where there is no obvious harm one way or the other, a lawful paladin is likely to respect the law because maintaining the orderly rule of law is ultimately a good thing, whereas a chaotic paladin is more likely to ignore it because pointless rules are smothering and wrong.


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## D1Tremere (May 15, 2018)

I contend that a chaotic paladin shouldn't even be possible.
The Chaotic alignment is all about "unfettered personal freedom," which should make devotion to a set of rules defined by another more or less impossible.


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## Shasarak (May 15, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Well, this is an example of what I have in mind when I say that later ideas, and even aspects of the AD&D books themselves, undermine the coherence of what Gygax puts forward.
> 
> As Gygax presents it in the Alignment sections of the PHB (around about p 30) and DMG (around about p 20), LE and CE aren't commitments to anything, let alone commitments to two, potentially competing, schemes of value (Law/Chaos, and Evil). Rather, LE = _I think that social organisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them_; CE = _I think individual self-realisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them_. Both a LE and a CE are maximally evil, in the sense that neither accepts values such as rights, wellbing, truth, beauty, etc as a constraint on action. What they disagree on is social theory.
> 
> ...




I guess if I was to explain it using your terminology then NE would be the most evil because they would be able to recognise when using social organisation or individual self-realisation would get the most out of others.

Likewise a NG person would not be wishy washy when they realise that social institutions are all very well and good but may not be the most effective in any one particular situation.  Like Keynes said 'When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?'


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## Garthanos (May 15, 2018)

Here is a weird example.
*
Elric of Melnibone* had a relationship with a very chaotic deity who considered him his favorite ... arguably they were very similar in some ways each valuing freedom and beauty and the god even took his face when it rarely appeared in humanoid form and the two spent a lot of effort on either bribing/coaxing one another to get them to do what they wanted or relying on the others nature to accomplish their own goals.   One can probably argue that Elric is his Cleric but a Plate armor, Shield and Sword using guy who invokes a god somewhat less than he just kills it with his weapon is kind of a D&D Paladin with the details filed off LOL.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 15, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I contend that a chaotic paladin shouldn't even be possible.
> The Chaotic alignment is all about "unfettered personal freedom," which should make devotion to a set of rules defined by another more or less impossible.



So you're saying that chaotic characters should not be free to devote themselves to whatever rules they please? That sounds kind of like you're fettering them to me.


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## Yaarel (May 15, 2018)

Garthanos said:


> Here is a weird example.
> *
> Elric of Melnibone* had a relationship with a very chaotic deity who considered him his favorite ... arguably they were very similar in some ways each valuing freedom and beauty and the god even took his face when it rarely appeared in humanoid form and the two spent a lot of effort on either bribing/coaxing one another to get them to do what they wanted or relying on the others nature to accomplish their own goals.   One can probably argue that Elric is his Cleric but a Plate armor, Shield and Sword using guy who invokes a god somewhat less than he just kills it with his weapon is kind of a D&D Paladin with the details filed off LOL.




On balance, Elric might be True, playing both sides of Lawful and Chaotic. I cant decide if he leans toward Good, Neutral, or Evil. His Evil is heavy, is there enough Good to outweigh it?

Regarding class, I always saw Elric as an archetypal summoner class. All of his magic comes from his pacts with various kinds of demons. He is the best example of what the word ‘sorcerer’ actually means: binding/bribing supernatural spirits to perform harmful magic.

To be fair, in terms of D&D, some of his demons seem more like fey than fiend.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> a NG person would not be wishy washy when they realise that social institutions are all very well and good but may not be the most effective in any one particular situation.  Like Keynes said 'When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?'



But this is taking for granted that the relevant facts can change. If, in fact, social organisation is always the best way to promote wellbeing and other valuable things (as the LG contend), then the NG - by casting doubt on this - are simply getting in the way of realising and upholding the good.



D1Tremere said:


> I contend that a chaotic paladin shouldn't even be possible.
> The Chaotic alignment is all about "unfettered personal freedom," which should make devotion to a set of rules defined by another more or less impossible.



My understanding of CG (which admittedly might be 40 years out of date, given that it draws on Gygax's AD&D books) is that CG people think that things worth valuing (rights, flourishing, truth, beauty, etc) are better promoted and secured via self-realisation, than via participation in social structures and collective endeavour.

Because the paladin archetype is connected to service (to a king, a church, etc) a CG "paladin" is necessarily going to depart from that archetype. But I think it is quite easy to envisage something like a CG "paladin" that combines elements of the archetype (devotion, hope, courage, honour) with romantic conceptions of individual achievement and self-realisation which yields quite a playable concept - a certain sort of approach to a knight errant could work, for instance.

Of course, we would then have the question - who is right, the LG paladin (who thinks service and society are necessary conditions of realising and upholding the good) or the CG paladin (who denies that) or the NG paladin (who has a bet each way)? But addressing that question would head into new territory for this thread - namely, how ought alignment conflicts to be framed and resolved in play? - and so I'm not going to go there on my own!


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## pemerton (May 15, 2018)

Garthanos said:


> *Elric of Melnibone* had a relationship with a very chaotic deity who considered him his favorite ... arguably they were very similar in some ways each valuing freedom and beauty and the god even took his face when it rarely appeared in humanoid form and the two spent a lot of effort on either bribing/coaxing one another to get them to do what they wanted or relying on the others nature to accomplish their own goals.   One can probably argue that Elric is his Cleric but a Plate armor, Shield and Sword using guy who invokes a god somewhat less than he just kills it with his weapon is kind of a D&D Paladin with the details filed off LOL.



I'm a long way from being an Elric expert - but does he affirm and uphold values beyond his own pleasure and pursuit of his own desires (and the desires of people he personally cares about)? I have the impression that the answer is "no", and so in classic D&D terms he is not _good_. Which seems to rule him out as a paladin. (The archetype seems intimately connected to upholding and promoting values beyond one's own concerns.)


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## Garthanos (May 15, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I'm a long way from being an Elric expert




Arguably his goals at the beginning of the story are about discovery as to whether is country can be turned to accomplish the goals we would identify as good... and even the discovery of the nature of "good" which his very fae people do not understand too well but which Elric was exposed to via a human mother and books.

The character is more about transition than being locked down ie the Chaotic element mentioned earlier however even in more classic stories of Samson, Cu Cuhlaine and Lancelot, the characters each and every broke their oaths as climactic story lines where they lose their power  The details of the Oaths involved hardly matter in some sense Cu Culaines was about learning to serve others but in general you could say his over all story was the value of learning itself. Samson's behavior was not particularly benign but didnt lose power till cutting of his locks etc... I think early D&D picked a subtype instead of the full archetype.

Another strong parallel for the three oath bound heroes mentioned above, all three fought using berserker rage. (in comparison Elric only did so perhaps unwillingly with Stormbringer pulling his chains and lancelots is perhaps part of his down fall making it impossible to forgive himself in the end)


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## Garthanos (May 15, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> On balance, Elric might be True, playing both sides of Lawful and Chaotic. I cant decide if he leans toward Good, Neutral, or Evil. His Evil is heavy, is there enough Good to outweigh it?




He starts out by breaking with the Norms of his society specifically because of his growing comprehension of Good. And in some sense the theme of the stories are that good is not wrapped up in either law or chaos.



Yaarel said:


> Regarding class, I always saw Elric as an archetypal summoner class.




The plate armor and being the second best swordsman of his world is the kicker to that, it was weapon and face to face where he did most all of his battle with the the other elements being supplemental in spite of Elric Being the best at them. In some sense ritual magic is very classic.  With only few legendary/mythic sources for anything like D&Ds over the top blastem now magic.

Blood and souls for my lord Arioch, Elric kills X enemies with his weapon and summons Arioch who appears this time as a cloud full of gaping maws which eat and do acid attacks against everything it touches cleaning up the remainder.  Elric was annoyed at how unreliable this Chaos god was.



Yaarel said:


> All of his magic comes from his pacts with various kinds of demons. He is the best example of what the word ‘sorcerer’ actually means: binding/bribing supernatural spirits to perform harmful magic.
> 
> To be fair, in terms of D&D, some of his demons seem more like fey than fiend.




He seemed to hate the more daemonic ones and considered Elementals somewhat more palatible if not actually benign

He inherited a lot of magic and Elrics people are themselves really fae.

 Arioch is identified as god by Elric's people but admittedly Elric doesn't think of Arioch that way so that right there is potentially greatest argument against both ( Chaotic )Paladin and Priest indicators for the character, in spite my tongue in cheek interpretation.


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## Shasarak (May 15, 2018)

pemerton said:


> But this is taking for granted that the relevant facts can change. If, in fact, social organisation is always the best way to promote wellbeing and other valuable things (as the LG contend), then the NG - by casting doubt on this - are simply getting in the way of realising and upholding the good.




And exactly because social organisation is not always the best way to promote 'goodness' is why LG could never be the best good.

**Just dont tell a LG person that, there is probably a law against pointing out the  flaws in the system (for your own good of course)**


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## pemerton (May 15, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> And exactly because social organisation is not always the best way to promote 'goodness' is why LG could never be the best good.



Well, if a campaign is set up on that premise then who would play a (traditional) paladin in it?

In my posts I'm assuming that the truth of the various alignment claims is up for grabs, and that the campaign doesn't start from the premise that the paladin is a fool. (As I also posted, I'm leaving the question - what does "up for grabs" actually mean in the context of play? - unaddressed.)


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## Gammadoodler (May 15, 2018)

Fair enough. This seems a reasonable enough distinction for general play. The chaotic good paladin doesn't care about speed limits and dress codes, got it. It does still seem like at any point a lawful good paladin doesn't like a particular rule, they can just "higher law" their way out of it, but I'm willing to concede that, at that point, perhaps its a player thing more than an alignment thing.


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## houser2112 (May 15, 2018)

barasawa said:


> Touch AC was created so mages, who's attacks totally suck, could ignore foes armor and at least have a chance for their touch spells to actually work.
> I'm not so sure reversing that, even if not completely, is such a good idea.




5E does it, and it works, only because it's very difficult to boost your AC much beyond 20. They threw the baby out with the bathwater on that, IMHO. The overlapping (rather than additive) methods of calculating AC were too high a price for getting rid of touch AC.


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## Parmandur (May 15, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> 5E does it, and it works, only because it's very difficult to boost your AC much beyond 20. They threw the baby out with the bathwater on that, IMHO. The overlapping (rather than additive) methods of calculating AC were too high a price for getting rid of touch AC.



You assume that getting rid of additive boni wasn't a feature, rather than a bug. It's hard to get anything over 20, and 30 is a hard cap. That's one of the best parts of 5E.


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## houser2112 (May 15, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> You assume that getting rid of additive boni wasn't a feature, rather than a bug. It's hard to get anything over 20, and 30 is a hard cap. That's one of the best parts of 5E.




Yeah, I admit that was a poor choice of words for what I meant: getting rid of additive boni is too high a price to pay for casters being able to hit with ray spells (for people who like the versimilitude of 3.x).


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## D1Tremere (May 15, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> So you're saying that chaotic characters should not be free to devote themselves to whatever rules they please? That sounds kind of like you're fettering them to me.




A chaotic character wouldn't want to enslave themselves to a power that both dictates to them how they must act, and holds the cords to their class features as reward/punishment. Thy would obviously be free to follow whoever they like, but to allow another to subsume that much of their personal agency would clash with Pathfinder's definition of the alignment as best I can tell.


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## D1Tremere (May 15, 2018)

pemerton said:


> But this is taking for granted that the relevant facts can change. If, in fact, social organisation is always the best way to promote wellbeing and other valuable things (as the LG contend), then the NG - by casting doubt on this - are simply getting in the way of realising and upholding the good.
> 
> My understanding of CG (which admittedly might be 40 years out of date, given that it draws on Gygax's AD&D books) is that CG people think that things worth valuing (rights, flourishing, truth, beauty, etc) are better promoted and secured via self-realisation, than via participation in social structures and collective endeavour.
> 
> ...




I think that is reasonable for other classes, but my contention is that Paladin's are a special case. They literally have an objective definition of good (as they see it), provided by whoever provides their power (and can revoke it). A wizard, for example, gets their power from an amoral source. The wizard can question the good of actions or positions all day, and still cast fireball. The Paladin must follow the will of their source, or become something other than a Paladin.
Just look at the alignment restrictions for clerics. A cleric must be somewhat similar (within one axis) with the views of their patron. A Paladin must be LG, because they are meant to serve the will, not contemplate it.


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## mellored (May 15, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I think that is reasonable for other classes, but my contention is that Paladin's are a special case. They literally have an objective definition of good (as they see it), provided by whoever provides their power (and can revoke it). A wizard, for example, gets their power from an amoral source. The wizard can question the good of actions or positions all day, and still cast fireball. The Paladin must follow the will of their source, or become something other than a Paladin.



Who exacly is granting or revoking a paladin's powers?
Is it from a god?  Or from their own personal conviction?

Either way, I don't see how it need to be lawful or good.


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## MechaTarrasque (May 15, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> And exactly because social organisation is not always the best way to promote 'goodness' is why LG could never be the best good.
> 
> **Just dont tell a LG person that, there is probably a law against pointing out the  flaws in the system (for your own good of course)**




I think it depends on "best"--the argument at the heart of LG is that it is the best over the long term, as opposed to the "random acts of kindness" of NG and the "I will tear down the evil in front of me and deal with the consequences later" of CG (now that I write that down, a tendency to "deal with the consequences later" seems like a good operational definition of a chaotic individual).  I would say LG's goal is to set up organizations (or to perfect/fix existing organizations) to "do good."  NG and CG types might (rightly) point out that even bureaucracies meant to "do good" tend to... dehumanize is probably a little strong, but reduce the agency of the recipients of that good, and it is not that long of a step from reducing the agency to dehumanizing.  It is just the nature of efficiency.


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## The Crimson Binome (May 15, 2018)

mellored said:


> Who exacly is granting or revoking a paladin's powers?
> Is it from a god?  Or from their own personal conviction?
> 
> Either way, I don't see how it need to be lawful or good.



It's from a god, and it needs to be lawful or good because the powers they grant are explicitly designed for lawful and good purposes. Asmodeus isn't going to hand out healing and fiend-slaying to his most-devoted followers, and have them go around healing people and smiting fiends, because that isn't his agenda; that's the agenda of Iomedae and Sarenrae.

If it was possible to grant yourself magical powers through your own personal conviction, then the world would be an even weirder place than it already is; moreover, there would be no reason for those powers to manifest in the abilities of the paladin class, rather than the sorcerer class.


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## mellored (May 15, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's from a god, and it needs to be lawful or good because the powers they grant are explicitly designed for lawful and good purposes. Asmodeus isn't going to hand out healing and fiend-slaying to his most-devoted followers, and have them go around healing people and smiting fiends, because that isn't his agenda; that's the agenda of Iomedae and Sarenrae.



Iomedae does not have healing domain.
Sarenrae is neutral good.
Pharasma has healing, but is neutral.
Milani has healing, but is chaotic good.
Sekhmet has healing and war, but is chaotic neutral.

In fact, I don't see any lawful good god who has healing domain...

Also, Asmodeus wouldn't have any issue with you kililng fiends.



> If it was possible to grant yourself magical powers through your own personal conviction, then the world would be an even weirder place than it already is; moreover, there would be no reason for those powers to manifest in the abilities of the paladin class, rather than the sorcerer class.



By the same token, if they are granted by a god, there would be the cleric class.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 15, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> Yeah, I admit that was a poor choice of words for what I meant: getting rid of additive boni is too high a price to pay for casters being able to hit with ray spells (for people who like the versimilitude of 3.x).



For spells that really do deal damage to anything they touch, there are still ones that use a Dex save rather than an attack roll, like _disintegrate_. It's just that the rules now assume armor is effective against stuff like bolts of fire and rays of acid. Which makes sense to me.


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## D1Tremere (May 15, 2018)

mellored said:


> Who exacly is granting or revoking a paladin's powers?
> Is it from a god?  Or from their own personal conviction?
> 
> Either way, I don't see how it need to be lawful or good.




In Pathfinder it is a god. The God doesn't need to be Lawful or Good (which are subjective), it defines what Lawful and good are for a Paladin (who must be). Different Gods can embody Lawful and Good differently, and so their Paladins may differ. At the end of the day, their own god is the final arbitrator of Lawful and Good for them (though certain traits of Law and Good alignment are necessary for one to ideologically be a Paladin, such as devotion to a code and self sacrificing.)


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## The Crimson Binome (May 15, 2018)

mellored said:


> In fact, I don't see any lawful good god who has healing domain...



You don't need to be a lawful good god of healing in order to have paladins. You just need an agenda centered around helping people and/or killing fiends.


mellored said:


> Also, Asmodeus wouldn't have any issue with you kililng fiends.



It's really not his style, though.


mellored said:


> By the same token, if they are granted by a god, there would be the cleric class.



At least in theory, clerics actually know what they're doing. They have to _understand_ all of the theology and whatnot, which is why they're wisdom-based. Paladins just need to _act_ on it. It's kind of like the difference between the wizard and the sorcerer, in a way, except all of their powers are granted by an external source which can take away those powers if they think you don't deserve them.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 15, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> A chaotic character wouldn't want to enslave themselves to a power that both dictates to them how they must act, and holds the cords to their class features as reward/punishment. Thy would obviously be free to follow whoever they like, but to allow another to subsume that much of their personal agency would clash with Pathfinder's definition of the alignment as best I can tell.



You seem to be ruling out the possibility of chaotic deities and religions in general. But Pathfinder definitely has those. Presumably chaotic followers of chaotic gods conceptualize their faith in a way other than "enslaving themselves".


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## TheCosmicKid (May 15, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> In Pathfinder it is a god. The God doesn't need to be Lawful or Good (which are subjective), it defines what Lawful and good are for a Paladin (who must be).



Law and good are not subjective in Pathfinder. They are defined independently of deities. Furthermore, the paladin's code is defined independently of deities. The paladin's requisite association with a god is more likely due to a stricter definition of "divine magic" than WotC-era D&D has allowed (see also: the Forgotten Realms) than to a philosophical commitment to moral subjectivism. Imagine a deity of indiscriminate misery and mayhem trying to make paladins of its followers by saying they were lawful good. Would they match the book's definition of lawful good? No. Would their behavior line up with the book's paladin's code? No.


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## mellored (May 15, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> You don't need to be a lawful good god of healing in order to have paladins. You just need an agenda centered around helping people and/or killing fiends.



I'm not sure why you need a god for that.

It also sounds a lot like a ranger with favored enemy.



> It's kind of like the difference between the wizard and the sorcerer, in a way, except all of their powers are granted by an external source which can take away those powers if they think you don't deserve them.



Fair... if not a very satisfactory answer.

Though, there are evil clerics.


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## The Crimson Binome (May 15, 2018)

mellored said:


> I'm not sure why you need a god for that.
> 
> It also sounds a lot like a ranger with favored enemy.



I agree. You could replace the paladin class entirely with a ranger that took fiends as a favored enemy, just as you could replace the druid class entirely by taking a cleric with nature-type domains. Paladins and druids only really make sense in the context of a pseudo-Medieval European setting where monotheism is the norm. They lose something when you try and transfer them to Faerun or Golarion, which is why we're left with the paladin being the way that it is.


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## mellored (May 15, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> I agree. You could replace the paladin class entirely with a ranger that took fiends as a favored enemy, just as you could replace the druid class entirely by taking a cleric with nature-type domains. Paladins and druids only really make sense in the context of a pseudo-Medieval European setting where monotheism is the norm. They lose something when you try and transfer them to Faerun or Golarion, which is why we're left with the paladin being the way that it is.



Well... it looks like paladins are taking on the tank role, as they get the best armor skills.  So that's a niche for them at any rate.
As compared to fighter's who get the best weapons skills.

Also, there was a 5e pool that said druid's most iconic ability was shapeshifting.   So if they make druids a shapeshifter class and less of a spell caster, they can separate it from nature clerics.
It could possibly take over barbarians as well with things like Rage of the Hawk, Rage of the Wolf, etc...


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## pemerton (May 15, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I think that is reasonable for other classes, but my contention is that Paladin's are a special case. They literally have an objective definition of good (as they see it), provided by whoever provides their power (and can revoke it).



I don't quite see how this bears on the possibiity of a CG "paladin".

Again adding the caveat that I'm working from 40 year old AD&D books, a _good_ person (which includes a paladin) values, respects and promotes wellbeing, human rights, truth, beauty and similar valuable things. (Yes, these may come into conflict. No set of D&D alignment rules I'm aware of tells us how to resolve those conflicts, which seems reasonable given that in the real world that is also a matter of debate.)

A LG person things that those valuable things are best secured and promoted through social organisation and cooperation. This is why a paladin, as traditionally conceived, must be LG - because the traditional paladin archetype sees service, structured relationships of interpersonal loyalty, community, eand the like as the best and proper ways for securing wellbeing, rights, truth and beauty.

A CG person doesn't dispute a LG person's values. S/he disputes that person's sociology and psychology. A CG person thinks that all those valuable things - wellbeing, rights, truth, beauty, etc - are best secured and fostered by individuals pursuing their own self-realisation. There is no absence of an "objective" definition of _good_. The dispute is about means, not ultimate ends.

I would expect a CG "paladin" classs (I use inverted commas because the character wouldn't literally be a paladin) to reflect "bottom up" or anti-establishment conceptions of a heroic and holy figure rather than "top down" noble conceptions: a certain sort of knight errant, or warrior hermit, for instance.



D1Tremere said:


> A chaotic character wouldn't want to enslave themselves to a power that both dictates to them how they must act, and holds the cords to their class features as reward/punishment. Thy would obviously be free to follow whoever they like, but to allow another to subsume that much of their personal agency would clash with Pathfinder's definition of the alignment as best I can tell.



I don't really follow this. _Devotion_ isn't the same as _enslavement_. A holy warrior hermit, who pursues his/her own self-realisation and supports others in doing so, could be devoted to some divine ideal or power (we can see models of or inspiriation for this possibility in real human history, although I'll avoid naming any because of board rules).

If that character was to fall short of his/her ideals and devotion, that could bring sanction from the divinity in question.


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## Yaarel (May 16, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Fair enough. This seems a reasonable enough distinction for general play. The chaotic good paladin doesn't care about speed limits and dress codes, got it. It does still seem like at any point a lawful good paladin doesn't like a particular rule, they can just "higher law" their way out of it, but I'm willing to concede that, at that point, perhaps its a player thing more than an alignment thing.




The Chaotic Good paladin cares about speed limits, for the sake of self preservation. But couldnt care less about them when rushing a woman in labor to the hospital.

Obviously, the Chaotic Good paladin doesnt care about uniforms. Heh, unless it is part of some ironic commentary about the harmfulness of conformity.


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## Yaarel (May 16, 2018)

In the difference between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good, I emphasize the conflict between the society and the individual.

The Lawful champions belonging to the group, (legislating) human rights, and public wellfare projects.

The Chaotic champions the uniqueness of each individual, personal freedoms, and equal opportunity to contribute ones strengths and talents.

But both agree about the priority of altruism and the value of helping others.



The Lawful Good hero wants to help make the *society* better. The Chaotic Good hero wants to help make an *individual* better.

The True Good hero goes with whichever tactic seems more helpful in a particular circumstance. True Good is more about *negotiating* to optimize the most good possible.


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## Garthanos (May 16, 2018)

shidaku said:


> PSSSH!  Clearly the paladin uses his charismatic skill to convince the lava not to hurt the baby.




And it works because the rool of cool ... ie there is a lava elemental who quickly creates a gust of vapor with a cooler inner buffer and levitates the baby into the paladins arms.

Lancelot removing woman safely from boiling water comes to mind.


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## D1Tremere (May 16, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Law and good are not subjective in Pathfinder. They are defined independently of deities. Furthermore, the paladin's code is defined independently of deities. The paladin's requisite association with a god is more likely due to a stricter definition of "divine magic" than WotC-era D&D has allowed (see also: the Forgotten Realms) than to a philosophical commitment to moral subjectivism. Imagine a deity of indiscriminate misery and mayhem trying to make paladins of its followers by saying they were lawful good. Would they match the book's definition of lawful good? No. Would their behavior line up with the book's paladin's code? No.




Law and Good are only generally defined in Pathfinder. While they are defined independently of gods (in general), they are more specifically defined by gods for Paladins. The Paladin's code may be defined independently of the god they serve, but the interpretation of their fulfillment of that code is in the hands of said god.
Example: Good characters respect life and protect innocent life. A wizard and a paladin are both forced to choose between saving one person or five. The wizard can choose either and argue the choice's merits. They are not wrong or right, so long as they have a reasonable defense. They also lose nothing from their moral stance. The Paladin may choose to save five instead of one, but lose their Paladinhood because their god sees the five as less worthy than the one. Because of this, the Paladin must do the best they can to follow the tenants of their faith, instead of contemplating the morality. Deontology. We are not capable of knowing right and wrong, so we must rely on a set of rules strictly. Hence the need for Lawful Good Paladins.
This is very different than the more teliological approach of Clerics, who have a less controlling relationship with their god.


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## D1Tremere (May 16, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I don't quite see how this bears on the possibiity of a CG "paladin".
> 
> Again adding the caveat that I'm working from 40 year old AD&D books, a _good_ person (which includes a paladin) values, respects and promotes wellbeing, human rights, truth, beauty and similar valuable things. (Yes, these may come into conflict. No set of D&D alignment rules I'm aware of tells us how to resolve those conflicts, which seems reasonable given that in the real world that is also a matter of debate.)
> 
> ...




A cleric has devotion, they can act on their own and so long as there alignment stays within range of their god they continue to be clerics. Even if they stray, they can just find another god more in line with their views.
A paladin is beholden to a god to approve of their actions, and to strip them of their class identity if they get out of line. That is ideological enslavement of the type that only the devoted and self sacrificing are likely to seek.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 16, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Fair enough. This seems a reasonable enough distinction for general play. The chaotic good paladin doesn't care about speed limits and dress codes, got it. It does still seem like at any point a lawful good paladin doesn't like a particular rule, they can just "higher law" their way out of it, but I'm willing to concede that, at that point, perhaps its a player thing more than an alignment thing.



Well, in order to "higher law" their way out of it, the higher law actually has to be against it. That ain't arbitrary. In real life, police officers and military service members in most modern democracies are sworn to uphold their nation's constitution. They can disobey a law or refuse an order if it violates the constitution. In practice, that's a pretty high bar. You don't have soldiers mutinying left and right just because they want to. It's a far cry from free spirits who actually don't give a rip about laws or orders.

I will also add that the current Pathfinder rules state explicitly, _"[Lawful good characters] fight to abolish or change laws they deem unjust"_. So I'm not just making up gibberish here.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 16, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> In the difference between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good, I emphasize the conflict between the society and the individual.
> 
> The Lawful champions belonging to the group, (legislating) human rights, and public wellfare projects.
> 
> ...



What do you think of the studious monk who wanders the earth seeking to perfect her own discipline, not interfering in the affairs of princes?

Or the anarchist firebrand who seeks to build a society where all are free and equal?

And if a "neutral" character is more open-minded and flexible in his tactics than a "chaotic" character, which one is _really_ the more chaotic?


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## pemerton (May 16, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> What do you think of the studious monk who wanders the earth seeking to perfect her own discipline, not interfering in the affairs of princes?
> 
> Or the anarchist firebrand who seeks to build a society where all are free and equal?



I can answer for my own part: in nearly every alignment thread I've ever posted in on these boards, I've made the point that the D&D alignment rules leave the sorts of things you ask about an open question. Likewise non-anarchist rule-of-law advocates, who believe that the rule of law is the best way to secure a zone of self-realisation for each individual. (I would expect this sort of worldview to be popular among at least some Americans!)

I don't think these sorts of questions can be answered by scouring the rulebooks for interpretive clues. And I don't know what Gygax, or the 3E team, or Jeremy Crawford think the answer is. I think this is something that each table has to work out for itself.

(I do think there are parts of the rules that push in unhelpful directions - eg whereas it makes sense to require paladins to be LG, given the way the traditional archetype is connected to notions of allegiance, church, nobility, etc, I think the Lawfulness requirement for monks is pretty unhelpful, given there are many exemplars of the archetype who reject community and are wanderers, hermits purusing self-reaslisation, etc.)


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## Yaarel (May 16, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> What do you think of the studious monk who wanders the earth seeking to perfect her own discipline, not interfering in the affairs of princes?
> 
> Or the anarchist firebrand who seeks to build a society where all are free and equal?
> 
> And if a "neutral" character is more open-minded and flexible in his tactics than a "chaotic" character, which one is _really_ the more chaotic?




An Asian-esque monk is almost by definition ‘True’, seeking the Dao between Law (Yang) and Chaos (Yin).

The main question is actions to bring wellbeing to others. If yes, then Good.

If uncaring, then Neutral. If predatory or spiteful, then Evil.

A Buddha-like monk prioritizes compassion and interconnectedness, so Good.


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## Yaarel (May 16, 2018)

pemerton said:


> In nearly every alignment thread I've ever posted in on these boards, I've made the point that the D&D alignment rules leave the sorts of things you ask about an open question. ... I don't think these sorts of questions can be answered by scouring the rulebooks for interpretive clues.




Exactly why, D&D *mechanics* cannot handle alignment narrative.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 16, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> An Asian-esque monk is almost by definition ‘True’, seeking the Dao between Law (Yang) and Chaos (Yin).



Does the fact that Pathfinder monks are by definition _lawful_ at all suggest that you might be using a definition of "lawful" which does not quite match the game's?


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## Yaarel (May 16, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Does the fact that Pathfinder monks are by definition _lawful_ at all suggest that you might be using a definition of "lawful" which does not quite match the game's?




There are some martial arts temples that are more like elite military units, that are arguably Lawful for the same reasons that militaries are extremely concerned about obedience, chain of command, and uniformity.

But the question I was answering specified a ‘wandering monk’ who eschews such collectivism of politics and military, and instead is ‘seeking to perfect’ ones personal best. In other words, less Lawful. (More Yin-balanced, seeking harmony.)

Daoism values the dynamic balance between collectivist Yang and individualist Yin.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Daoism values the dynamic balance between collectivist Yang and individualist Yin.



I'm not going to address real world philosophical and cultural frameworks, but I do want to use this post to make a point about the way alignment works in the game.

If someone said "X alignment values the dynamic balance between murdering every stranger you meet, and only murdering those who cut you off on the freeway", that would seem a bit weird. Because there is no such dynamic balance.

Likewise, from the perspective of LG, _there is no dynamic balance_ between social order and individualism: rather, there is the effective way to pursue wellbeing, truth, beauty etc - namely, social organisation - and then there is individualism which, however well-intentioned, will (the LG person asserts) fall short.

In describing the various good alignments, I think it is helpful to focus on what each asserts/believes, but not to frame descriptions in a way that already assumes that one of those assertions is true and the others false.



Yaarel said:


> Exactly why, D&D *mechanics* cannot handle alignment narrative.



Well, I think that as long as you frame your alignment descriptions in a way that doesn't assume, from the outset, that LG and CG make false claims; and as long as you focus your narrative on the disagreement between LG and CG; then it can handle them.

If you want the focus to be on _what is really good_ - eg if rights, wellbeing, truth and/or beauty com into conflict, which one should be traded off and how? - then the alignment system gives no advice at all.

I had a thread about this a few years ago now.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> But the question I was answering specified a ‘wandering monk’ who eschews such collectivism of politics and military, and instead is ‘seeking to perfect’ ones personal best. In other words, less Lawful. (More Yin-balanced, seeking harmony.)



Except that by the definitions Pathfinder is using, those monks _are_ lawful. So whatever you think "lawful" means, it's different than what the game says "lawful" means.



Yaarel said:


> Daoism values the dynamic balance between collectivist Yang and individualist Yin.



The real-life monks who inspire the class are _Buddhist_.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Well, if a campaign is set up on that premise then who would play a (traditional) paladin in it?




Well simply someone who believes that LG is the best type of Good.



> In my posts I'm assuming that the truth of the various alignment claims is up for grabs, and that the campaign doesn't start from the premise that the paladin is a fool. (As I also posted, I'm leaving the question - what does "up for grabs" actually mean in the context of play? - unaddressed.)




I dont know if that would be better or worse then starting from the premise that Neutral characters are just some kind of Alignment-lite characters.   What does it matter to a Paladin if everyone else thinks they are a fool when they know they are right?


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## Yaarel (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> In describing the various good alignments, I think it is helpful to focus on what each asserts/believes, but not to frame descriptions in a way that already assumes that one of those assertions is *true* and the others *false*.




Oh. You mean the nomenclature of ‘True Good’. This is just an extension of the D&D-ism ‘True Neutral’, instead of saying ‘Neutral Neutral’, that is in between Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral. True refers to the first kind of Neutral. Under the influence of this D&D-ism, True Good is construed as being in between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good.

Remember Chaotic Good believes Lawful Good falls short of the measure of Good. Chaotic Good makes excellent points in its case against Lawful Good. Law can do great harm, and conformity can be deeply evil − and for the Lawful Good character these excesses of Law are an ongoing temptation.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Example: Good characters respect life and protect innocent life. A wizard and a paladin are both forced to choose between saving one person or five. The wizard can choose either and argue the choice's merits. They are not wrong or right, so long as they have a reasonable defense. They also lose nothing from their moral stance. The Paladin may choose to save five instead of one, but lose their Paladinhood because their god sees the five as less worthy than the one. Because of this, the Paladin must do the best they can to follow the tenants of their faith, instead of contemplating the morality. Deontology. We are not capable of knowing right and wrong, so we must rely on a set of rules strictly. Hence the need for Lawful Good Paladins.




I just have tp clarify, in your example are you saying that saving either one life or five lives is an evil act which would cause a Paladin to fall?  

Or are you saying that deliberately pushing an innocent in front of trolley be an evil act even though you intended to save five people?  

Because I remember a scene in a Spiderman movie where Spiderman literally throws himself in front of a train to save everyone on it rather then trying to throw anyone else in the way.  Could we ask our Paladins to do any less?


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

MechaTarrasque said:


> I think it depends on "best"--the argument at the heart of LG is that it is the best over the long term, as opposed to the "random acts of kindness" of NG and the "I will tear down the evil in front of me and deal with the consequences later" of CG (now that I write that down, a tendency to "deal with the consequences later" seems like a good operational definition of a chaotic individual).  I would say LG's goal is to set up organizations (or to perfect/fix existing organizations) to "do good."  NG and CG types might (rightly) point out that even bureaucracies meant to "do good" tend to... dehumanize is probably a little strong, but reduce the agency of the recipients of that good, and it is not that long of a step from reducing the agency to dehumanizing.  It is just the nature of efficiency.




It is probably more efficient to organise the funding, building and staffing of an orphanage to help a large number of orphans but is it more good then finding a loving family that would raise an orphan as their own child?


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## Yaarel (May 17, 2018)

Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.

For example, laws that favor the wealthy, or legitimize slavery (or insufficient wage, or no medical insurance, or whatever), or persecute gay people, or silence religious people, or whatever. Especially when such laws are ‘normal’, it can take Lawful Good communities tens of centuries to even begin to *understand* how some of these laws might be ... ungood.

So, by focusing on societal expectations rather than on individual needs, Lawful Good can behave as an ignorant arrogant villain.


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## D1Tremere (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> I just have tp clarify, in your example are you saying that saving either one life or five lives is an evil act which would cause a Paladin to fall?
> 
> Or are you saying that deliberately pushing an innocent in front of trolley be an evil act even though you intended to save five people?
> 
> Because I remember a scene in a Spiderman movie where Spiderman literally throws himself in front of a train to save everyone on it rather then trying to throw anyone else in the way.  Could we ask our Paladins to do any less?




Not sure if serious, but...I'm saying that saving one or five is simply an act. The good or evil of it is determined by those who interpret the results, and the particular moral philosophy they apply (along with how far down the chin of consequences they look). In the case of the Paladin, their god's interpretation is the only one that matters (lest they lose their class identity).


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## Yaarel (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> It is probably more efficient to organise the funding, building and staffing of an orphanage to help a large number of orphans but is it more good then finding a loving family that would raise an orphan as their own child?




In my view, your orphan scenario is the essence of the debate between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good.

Maybe it is fair to characterize the debate as: breadth of Good (Lawful) versus depth of Good (Chaotic)


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> What does it matter to a Paladin if everyone else thinks they are a fool when they know they are right?



I'm more thinking about the player's relationship to the GM, than the PC's relationship to other characters within the fiction.

If the GM - or the game system that the GM is administering - takes as a premise that it is impossible to fully realise the good while adhering to lawfulness, then the paladin player knows that s/he has already lost, and that his/her PC's aspirations are hopeless.



Yaarel said:


> Chaotic Good believes Lawful Good falls short of the measure of Good. Chaotic Good makes excellent points in its case against Lawful Good. Law can do great harm, and conformity can be deeply evil − and for the Lawful Good character these excesses of Law are an ongoing temptation.



Yes, CG believes that LG falls short. And vice versa. LG also believes that NG falls short - if they didn't, they would all convert!

Hence why I don't like a framing of the alignment system that seems to take as a premise that NG is in fact correct (ie that achieving the Good sometimes requires abandoning or rejecting sociality, hierarchy, stable community, etc).

EDIT:


Yaarel said:


> Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.
> 
> For example, laws that favor the wealthy, or legitimize slavery (or insufficient wage, or no medical insurance, or whatever), or persecute gay people, or silence religious people, or whatever. Especially when such laws are ‘normal’, it can take Lawful Good communities tens of centuries to even begin to *understand* how some of these laws might be ... ungood.
> 
> So, by focusing on societal expectations rather than on individual needs, Lawful Good can behave as an ignorant arrogant villain.



I think this post either takes as a premise, or counts as an argument for, the claim that LG is not fully good.

Now that may be true or it may be false (though I think it's against board rules to get into an argument about that). What I'm saying is that, if the alignment system is meant to be viable, I think it has to be neutral as to any such premise or argument. So it can't be defined or presented in such terms.

So if, in play, some cleric of Tritherion runs your argument against my paladin, that's fine and grist for the roleplaying mill. But if _the GM_ or _the game system_ asserts your argument, then that would make me wonder why I'm bothering to play a paladin in that game, when the system already takes for granted that I (and my character) have failed.


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## Sunseeker (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I'm more thinking about the player's relationship to the GM, than the PC's relationship to other characters within the fiction.
> 
> If the GM - or the game system that the GM is administering - takes as a premise that it is impossible to fully realise the good while adhering to lawfulness, then the paladin player knows that s/he has already lost, and that his/her PC's aspirations are hopeless.




I'd argue that fighting hopeless battles, even against the game system, is part of the appeal of playing a Paladin...provided that your DM is interested in indulging you.  Too often DMs are interested in enforcing hard mechanical penalties which you've already violated by simply _existing_.  That's not fun to play against.

It's why, for example, my favorite paladin ever was a tiefling (and a rather demonic looking one at that).  Their whole life was about fighting that uphill, in-the-snow, both-ways battle, surrounded on all sides.  It was terribly fun.  It's like playing Captain America.  BUT, it was fun because the DM was willing to indulge me, and wasn't looking for excuses to screw me over and take my pally-powers.

It was also 4E, which had an obviously looser alignment system.

BUT, this is something the rules should make clear: Even if fighting uphill battles is what being a Paladin is all about, the DM should be advised to challenge the Paladin with _adversity_ not simply put them in impossible situations.  Too many DMs use _their_ personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin *in game*​ has actually sworn to uphold.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

shidaku said:


> I'd argue that fighting hopeless battles, even against the game system, is part of the appeal of playing a Paladin



Battles that are hopeless in the sense of the odds being against you are fine, and part of the archetype.

But struggling to prove that 2+2=5, when the GM and the system take standard arithmetic for granted (2+2=4) just seems silly. The character might be endearing in some fashion, but ultimately is a fool, isn't s/he?


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## TheCosmicKid (May 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Oh. You mean the nomenclature of ‘True Good’. This is just an extension of the D&D-ism ‘True Neutral’, instead of saying ‘Neutral Neutral’, that is in between Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral. True refers to the first kind of Neutral. Under the influence of this D&D-ism, True Good is construed as being in between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good.



Nobody except you uses "true" this way. The term remains "neutral good", as it has been since Gary Gygax first wrote it. When you use your own idiosyncratic terminology, that only exacerbates the appearance that you are talking about _your own system that you have made up_, as opposed to _a grounded interpretation of the system the game presents_. Which makes this conversation a matter of apples and oranges.



Yaarel said:


> Perhaps the most serious handicap of Lawful Good, is its tendency to confuse being ‘legal’ with being ‘right’, and being ‘right’ with being ‘good’. It is extremely difficult for a Lawful Good person to even realize that law is less Good, nevermind actively oppose it.



This is called a strawman argument. You are presenting a weak and flawed version of the position you are criticizing, rather than making a good-faith attempt to understand a robust version that might actually be defended by a serious advocate of the position (_i.e._, a paladin).


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## TheCosmicKid (May 17, 2018)

shidaku said:


> It was also 4E, which had an obviously looser alignment system.



So loose it managed to misplace almost half of the alignments! 



shidaku said:


> BUT, this is something the rules should make clear: Even if fighting uphill battles is what being a Paladin is all about, the DM should be advised to challenge the Paladin with _adversity_ not simply put them in impossible situations.  Too many DMs use _their_ personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin *in game*​ has actually sworn to uphold.



I'd agree with this, although it's a tough tightrope to walk. The DM _is_ the final arbiter of what is good and evil in the world, after all. So at some point, the DM is going to define what "the laws and goodness the paladin has actually sworn to uphold" actually are. Thus, it's a matter of being consistent to that standard rather than arbitrary. Which seems like a pretty reasonable exercise, because, y'know, _lawful_.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Not sure if serious, but...I'm saying that saving one or five is simply an act. The good or evil of it is determined by those who interpret the results, and the particular moral philosophy they apply (along with how far down the chin of consequences they look). In the case of the Paladin, their god's interpretation is the only one that matters (lest they lose their class identity).




Well the results really are immaterial, it is the action that counts.  If you act to save one person when you could have acted to save five people then your action is still good.  If you sacrifice one innocent to save five then your action is still evil.

I dont think I would take anyone seriously who suggested that it is an evil act to save a baby that turned out to be a mass murderer when they grew up because you did not look far enough down the chain of consequences.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Too many DMs use _their_ personal morality to decide if a paladin has broken their code, regardless of the codes or laws or goodness the paladin *in game*​ has actually sworn to uphold.





TheCosmicKid said:


> The DM _is_ the final arbiter of what is good and evil in the world, after all.



This moves the discussion into treacherous terrain!

I'm personally not a big fan of GM-adjudicated alignment, and so take a different approach from TheCosmicKid's. That probably puts me in a minority among posters in this thread.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I'm more thinking about the player's relationship to the GM, than the PC's relationship to other characters within the fiction.
> 
> If the GM - or the game system that the GM is administering - takes as a premise that it is impossible to fully realise the good while adhering to lawfulness, then the paladin player knows that s/he has already lost, and that his/her PC's aspirations are hopeless.




It seems an odd position to give up before you even try just because you may not get 100 on the test.

It would be like playing a Fighter who never fights because they wont crit for maximum damage on every strike.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> If you sacrifice one innocent to save five then your action is still evil.



This is fairly contentious. Eg most accounts of justice in warfare allow that it is permissible to kill civilians provided that (i) it is not disproportionate, and (ii) it is not avoidable in order to achieve a legitimate military goal, and (iii) the killing of the civilians is not intended/desired.

I'm not saying that those accounts of justice in warfare are necessarily correct; they may be wrong. But they are widespread. And the D&D/PF alignment system contributes nothing to a discussion as to whether or not they are correct; whether it is permissible to push the fat man off the bridge to stop the runaway trolley; whether it is permissible to blow up an attacking tank with a baby strapped to it; etc. (Gygax, for instance, treats _the common welfare_, _human rights_, and _the greatest happiness of the greatest number_ all as falling within the category of _good_. He also includes _beauty_ and _truth_ in there. In other words, he makes no effort to put forward any particular theory of morality, but rather treats _good_ as standing for everything that any mainstream moral framework treats as valuable.)


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> It seems an odd position to give up before you even try just because you may not get 100 on the test.
> 
> It would be like playing a Fighter who never fights because they wont crit for maximum damage on every strike.



I don't thik that's an apt comparison.

If the GM or game system has already decided that _being lawful_ is, in fact, not the best way to _be good_, then to playa character whose whole raison d'etre is _to be good_ in virtue of _being lawful_ because _that's the best way to be good_ is to play a character who is already known, by everyone at the table, to be misguided.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> This is fairly contentious. Eg most accounts of justice in warfare allow that it is permissible to kill civilians provided that (i) it is not disproportionate, and (ii) it is not avoidable in order to achieve a legitimate military goal, and (iii) the killing of the civilians is not intended/desired.




I would suggest that in this case you are arguing that it would be Lawful to kill civilians in warfare rather then it is not Evil.



> I'm not saying that those accounts of justice in warfare are necessarily correct; they may be wrong. But they are widespread. And the D&D/PF alignment system contributes nothing to a discussion as to whether or not they are correct; whether it is permissible to push the fat man off the bridge to stop the runaway trolley; whether it is permissible to blow up an attacking tank with a baby strapped to it; etc. (Gygax, for instance, treats _the common welfare_, _human rights_, and _the greatest happiness of the greatest number_ all as falling within the category of _good_. He also includes _beauty_ and _truth_ in there. In other words, he makes no effort to put forward any particular theory of morality, but rather treats _good_ as standing for everything that any mainstream moral framework treats as valuable.)




I would have imagined that both common welfare and human rights are being violated by the killing of civilians and also that the act is not increasing happiness for anyone really.


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## Shasarak (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I don't thik that's an apt comparison.
> 
> If the GM or game system has already decided that _being lawful_ is, in fact, not the best way to _be good_, then to playa character whose whole raison d'etre is _to be good_ in virtue of _being lawful_ because _that's the best way to be good_ is to play a character who is already known, by everyone at the table, to be misguided.




So then it is more like a character who is specialised in wielding a Hammer getting upset because there are some things in the game that are resistant to bludgeoning damage and that another character who can use multiple weapons is more effective because they can adapt better to different encounters.

And totally forgetting that they stomp encounters with creatures that are weak to bludgeoning damage.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> So then it is more like a character who is specialised in wielding a Hammer getting upset because there are some things in the game that are resistant to bludgeoning damage and that another character who can use multiple weapons is more effective because they can adapt better to different encounters.
> 
> And totally forgetting that they stomp encounters with creatures that are weak to bludgeoning damage.



Everything you say here is about effectiveness.

The better comparison in that domain would be this: a player wants to build a PC who is _the deadliest warrior in the universe_, and builds that character with a dagger, which, by the rules, can only ever do d4 damage and hence can never be the instrument of the deadliest warrior in the universe.

But even that comparison I think is not apt, because in the alignment context I'm not talking about whether or not a character is effective, but whether or not his/her moral vision is viable. If the premise of the alignment system is that _law, on its own, can not achieve ultimate goodness_ then a character whose moral vision is _I will achieve ultimate goodness by means of law_ is already wrong. The game set-up refutes the moral vision from the get-go. And not in some subtle fashion, but quite straightforwardly, by outright denying it.

I would find it silly to play a character whose moral vision is self-evidently wrong, from the get-go, in that fashion.



Shasarak said:


> I would suggest that in this case you are arguing that it would be Lawful to kill civilians in warfare rather then it is not Evil.



No. I'm making the point that nearly every author on the topic of just war takes the view that killing civilians is sometimes morally permissible.

For instance, from Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, pp 155-56:

Simply not to intend the death of civilians is too easy . . . What we look for in such cases is some sign of a positive commitment to save civilian lives. Not merely to apply the proportionality rule and kill no more civilians than is militarily necessary - that rule applies to soldiers as well; no on can be killed for trivial purposes. Civilians have a right to something more. And is saving civilian lives means risking soldiers' lives, the risk must be accepted. But there is a limit to the risks we require. These are, after all, unintended deaths and legitimate military operations . . . War necessarily places civilians in danger . . . We can only ask soldiers to minimize the dangers they impose.​


Shasarak said:


> I would have imagined that both common welfare and human rights are being violated by the killing of civilians and also that the act is not increasing happiness for anyone really.



That's contentious. I've heard many diplomats and soldiers argue otherwise, including earlier this week.

I don't want to actually call out contemporary contentious cases, so I'll mention historical ones instead: as far as I'm aware, the US government still defends the atomic bombing of Japan on grounds that it ended the war sooner than it otherwise would have, thereby achieving a net reduction in human suffering.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> This moves the discussion into treacherous terrain!
> 
> I'm personally not a big fan of GM-adjudicated alignment, and so take a different approach from TheCosmicKid's. That probably puts me in a minority among posters in this thread.



I don't think I'm making a particularly contentious claim, just a _de facto_ observation. The DM is also the final arbiter of whether or not rocks fall and everyone dies. Doesn't mean it's a good idea for them to make heavy use of that power, but they're the one at the table who has it.


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## pemerton (May 17, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I don't think I'm making a particularly contentious claim, just a _de facto_ observation. The DM is also the final arbiter of whether or not rocks fall and everyone dies. Doesn't mean it's a good idea for them to make heavy use of that power, but they're the one at the table who has it.



When it comes to alignment, I don't take that approach. I treat it as a table matter.


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## Gammadoodler (May 17, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Well, in order to "higher law" their way out of it, the higher law actually has to be against it. That ain't arbitrary. In real life, police officers and military service members in most modern democracies are sworn to uphold their nation's constitution. They can disobey a law or refuse an order if it violates the constitution. In practice, that's a pretty high bar. You don't have soldiers mutinying left and right just because they want to. It's a far cry from free spirits who actually don't give a rip about laws or orders.
> 
> I will also add that the current Pathfinder rules state explicitly, _"[Lawful good characters] fight to abolish or change laws they deem unjust"_. So I'm not just making up gibberish here.




While I could be wrong, in practice, I suspect paladins' typical "higher laws" are more likely to be positive than prohibitive in nature. Things like "Value life, help people, speak truly, etc." aren't really about defining inappropriate behavior so much as (broadly) describing good behavior. Perhaps "higher laws" are different in other games though, and contain exhaustive lists of prohibited actions or specific instructions for the appropriate action to take in any circumstance. 

Even if that were the case though, like any other laws, they are going to be subject to the interpretation of, at a minimum, the paladin and whatever force/deity/whatever grants that paladin power (but realistically, also of the players at the table and the GM). As in your quote from Pathfinder "[Lawful good characters] fight to abolish or change laws _they deem unjust_." 

As I said though, this is still likely more an at-the-table issue than an in-game-world issue.


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## D1Tremere (May 17, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Well the results really are immaterial, it is the action that counts.  If you act to save one person when you could have acted to save five people then your action is still good.  If you sacrifice one innocent to save five then your action is still evil.
> 
> I dont think I would take anyone seriously who suggested that it is an evil act to save a baby that turned out to be a mass murderer when they grew up because you did not look far enough down the chain of consequences.




That is your opinion, and you are allowed to have opinions, but it is not an objective criteria unfortunately. Moral philosophy abounds with debate over consequentialism.
Are the results of an action what determine its morality, or the intentions of the actor? Is it a good action to save five instead of one if one of the five is your child? What if the one is someone you hate? Does the actor need to be intentionally trying to help the people for it to be good, or is saving them enough even if unintentional? 
There are no good/evil acts in an objective sense, so everything comes down to who is judging and by what criteria.


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## D1Tremere (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> When it comes to alignment, I don't take that approach. I treat it as a table matter.




That seems untenable. you can't have a game devolve into an argument on moral philosophy every time a character exorcises agency (unless that is what your game is into). Almost any action a player takes can be justified moralistically in one way or another, so I don't see how that would work in mechanical situations (such as with the Paladin).


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## Gammadoodler (May 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The Chaotic Good paladin cares about speed limits, for the sake of self preservation. But couldnt care less about them when rushing a woman in labor to the hospital.
> 
> Obviously, the Chaotic Good paladin doesnt care about uniforms. Heh, unless it is part of some ironic commentary about the harmfulness of conformity.




Chaotic Good - the alignment of choice for safety paladins everywhere. I'm assuming one of the tenets of the code is 'Hold your horses'.


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## Sunseeker (May 17, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Battles that are hopeless in the sense of the odds being against you are fine, and part of the archetype.
> 
> But struggling to prove that 2+2=5, when the GM and the system take standard arithmetic for granted (2+2=4) just seems silly. The character might be endearing in some fashion, but ultimately is a fool, isn't s/he?




Well yes, but I don't think that's the kind of battle the Paladin usually fights.

The uphill battle is usually against unreasonable burdens.  Like, you catch your friend stealing from the party, friend apologizes, returns the item, but that's not how the law works, the law says he has to go to court, go to jail.  The Paladin is only the enforcer, not the judge and jury, so the Paladin has the choice between letting the criminal go (breaking the law) or packing up their stuff in the middle of a dungeon and attempting to escort a party member all the way back to town.  If he does the former, he loses his powers, if he doesn't do the latter (because it's absurd), he loses his powers.

These are not _unusual_ situations for paladins to be placed in.  



TheCosmicKid said:


> So loose it managed to misplace almost half of the alignments!



And was better all around for it.



> I'd agree with this, although it's a tough tightrope to walk. The DM _is_ the final arbiter of what is good and evil in the world, after all. So at some point, the DM is going to define what "the laws and goodness the paladin has actually sworn to uphold" actually are. Thus, it's a matter of being consistent to that standard rather than arbitrary. Which seems like a pretty reasonable exercise, because, y'know, _lawful_.



Ideally the DM should be consistent in keeping his rulings in line with the rules he already made up for the setting.  
Historically speaking: this isn't usually what happens.
And few DMs are good at adjudicating alignments from the perspective of multiple gods.


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## Gammadoodler (May 17, 2018)

Honest question, outside of systems where classes are tied to alignment and maybe certain spells, how much alignment adjudication is actually happening in people's games? My direct experience is pretty much limited to 5E, and I can only think of one time when it's come up in a dungeon puzzle, and even then the DM just used whatever was on folks' character sheet.

Edit: If it only really comes up in these specific corner case-type situations, but is so contentious when it does, what's the value?


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> While I could be wrong, in practice, I suspect paladins' typical "higher laws" are more likely to be positive than prohibitive in nature. Things like "Value life, help people, speak truly, etc." aren't really about defining inappropriate behavior so much as (broadly) describing good behavior. Perhaps "higher laws" are different in other games though, and contain exhaustive lists of prohibited actions or specific instructions for the appropriate action to take in any circumstance.



You make a thought-provoking distinction, and I think you're right, most positive laws are going to be more open to interpretation for when they are violated than prohibitive laws. But _more_ open to interpretation is not the same at _totally_ open to interpretation. A paladin would not be able to "higher law" their way out of a secular law forbidding cold-blooded murder, because such a law is pretty clearly "valuing life". And some positive laws are just equivalent to prohibitive laws: for instance, "speak truly" and "don't lie" are two sides of the same coin.



Gammadoodler said:


> Even if that were the case though, like any other laws, they are going to be subject to the interpretation of, at a minimum, the paladin and whatever force/deity/whatever grants that paladin power (but realistically, also of the players at the table and the GM). As in your quote from Pathfinder "[Lawful good characters] fight to abolish or change laws _they deem unjust_."



Well, paladins are a bit of a special case because they have direct(ish) access to the goodness-source. Most lawful good characters have to use their own judgment simply because, y'know, they're like everybody else there.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> There are no good/evil acts in an objective sense...



Moral philosophy abounds with debate over that claim, too.

To put it mildly.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Edit: If it only really comes up in these specific corner case-type situations, but is so contentious when it does, what's the value?



It adds to the portrayal of a world where good and evil, law and chaos, are actual cosmic forces in conflict. In Tolkien, for instance, it is more thematic and evocative to say that Gandalf is good and Sauron is evil than that Gandalf simply has a unfavorable opinion of Sauron's foreign policy decisions. Not all campaigns are like this, of course, and if yours isn't, that's perfectly fine, there's a reason 5E made alignment such a modular system (Pathfinder is lagging a bit there). But in the right hands and the right setting, it's a useful tool.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Moral philosophy abounds with debate over that claim, too.
> 
> To put it mildly.




Not really. Not unless you turn to theology.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> You make a thought-provoking distinction, and I think you're right, most positive laws are going to be more open to interpretation for when they are violated than prohibitive laws. But _more_ open to interpretation is not the same at _totally_ open to interpretation. A paladin would not be able to "higher law" their way out of a secular law forbidding cold-blooded murder, because such a law is pretty clearly "valuing life". And some positive laws are just equivalent to prohibitive laws: for instance, "speak truly" and "don't lie" are two sides of the same coin.
> 
> Well, paladins are a bit of a special case because they have direct(ish) access to the goodness-source. Most lawful good characters have to use their own judgment simply because, y'know, they're like everybody else there.




Most have laws "valuing life," but manage to justify killing under how you define the circumstances.
in group-out group (tribalism) mechanics usually have clear rules about murder (in-group killing) that do not apply to others (out-group killing). Add to that complications on the meaning of life (it is ok to kill plants, animals, orks, but not half-orks, Etc.).


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Not really. Not unless you turn to theology.



Moral relativism.

_"Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it."_

If you have been unaware that this is a live question in the field -- indeed, perhaps _the_ live question in the field -- then I don't know what else to say.


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## Gammadoodler (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> You make a thought-provoking distinction, and I think you're right, most positive laws are going to be more open to interpretation for when they are violated than prohibitive laws. But _more_ open to interpretation is not the same at _totally_ open to interpretation. A paladin would not be able to "higher law" their way out of a secular law forbidding cold-blooded murder, because such a law is pretty clearly "valuing life". And some positive laws are just equivalent to prohibitive laws: for instance, "speak truly" and "don't lie" are two sides of the same coin.




Correct, wasn't saying that they were absolutely open to interpretation. The overall question in my mind, such as it is, is how one distinguishes the CG and NG paladins from the LG paladin invoking "higher law." Assuming they're all good, there is already some natural crossover (except insofar as differing good paladins have different ways of looking at goodness, which is a different topic entirely). The point you'd made about the CG and possibly NG paladins potentially ignoring laws that don't have any implicit moral content makes sense. However, an LG paladin exercising a sufficiently liberal "higher law" interpretation looks pretty similar to other differently-aligned paladins. I wouldn't expect such a problem from most players for a LG paladin unless they're trying to pull something, so it's likely more a social contract issue than anything else. But, it is a pretty open loophole. Not game-breaking, but potentially bothersome.



TheCosmicKid said:


> Well, paladins are a bit of a special case because they have direct(ish) access to the goodness-source. Most lawful good characters have to use their own judgment simply because, y'know, they're like everybody else there.




They certainly can be. Think that's pretty character/game dependent (I kinda like the idea of the paladin who makes the vow and receives power and no other communication, just faith and commitment rewarded by power and silence.), but I see your point.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> That is your opinion, and you are allowed to have opinions, but it is not an objective criteria unfortunately. Moral philosophy abounds with debate over consequentialism.
> Are the results of an action what determine its morality, or the intentions of the actor? Is it a good action to save five instead of one if one of the five is your child? What if the one is someone you hate? Does the actor need to be intentionally trying to help the people for it to be good, or is saving them enough even if unintentional?
> There are no good/evil acts in an objective sense, so everything comes down to who is judging and by what criteria.




Well we already have someone claiming that use of an Atomic bomb is a Good act so yeah, people got to justify their actions.  The first step is claiming that there are no objectively good or evil acts.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Moral relativism.
> 
> _"Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it."_
> 
> If you have been unaware that this is a live question in the field -- indeed, perhaps _the_ live question in the field -- then I don't know what else to say.




People being critical of moral relativism is not the same as debate. Only theological philosophers actually debate it, because nothing else provides an objective standard.
To be sure, people in the philosophy department argue about it all the time. But given the advances in cultural anthropology and psychology, no one really debates it.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Well we already have someone claiming that use of an Atomic bomb is a Good act so yeah, people got to justify their actions.  The first step is claiming that there are no objectively good or evil acts.




The idea of objective good/evil is itself a positive claim. In order to make a positive claim you must have evidence to support it. There is no evidence to support objective good/evil.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> The idea of objective good/evil is itself a positive claim. In order to make a positive claim you must have evidence to support it. There is no evidence to support objective good/evil.




I must admit that I do feel foolish in trying to discuss Alignment without first checking that everyone understands what the difference between Good and Evil is.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> I must admit that I do feel foolish in trying to discuss Alignment without first checking that everyone understands what the difference between Good and Evil is.




In 20+ years of running games the one thing i can say is that no one is ever clear on why some things in the game may be good and others not lol. "Why is the town paying us to kill the Goblins but making orks citizens?" "Does having the evil subtype mean i can torture it for information and its ok?" "If he is undead does that mean he is property?" So many weird discussions lol.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> In 20+ years of running games the one thing i can say is that no one is ever clear on why some things in the game may be good and others not lol. "Why is the town paying us to kill the Goblins but making orks citizens?" "Does having the evil subtype mean i can torture it for information and its ok?" "If he is undead does that mean he is property?" So many weird discussions lol.




That is interesting.  I was listening to a former CIA agent talking about obtaining information from people and the effectiveness of torture.  What decision did you come to in the end?


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> That is interesting.  I was listening to a former CIA agent talking about obtaining information from people and the effectiveness of torture.  What decision did you come to in the end?




That was a long while back, but i believe the party ended up deciding to bribe the Drow they had captured into telling them where the person who hired them was.


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## Sunseeker (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Honest question, outside of systems where classes are tied to alignment and maybe certain spells, how much alignment adjudication is actually happening in people's games? My direct experience is pretty much limited to 5E, and I can only think of one time when it's come up in a dungeon puzzle, and even then the DM just used whatever was on folks' character sheet.
> 
> Edit: If it only really comes up in these specific corner case-type situations, but is so contentious when it does, what's the value?




Wrong question.

The right question is: how DMs remember that more than Paladins have alignment restrictions?
Starting from the top, 3.5 PHB:
Barbarian: Any non-lawful: CG, NG, CN, NN, NE, CE
Bard: Any non-lawful.  See above...
Cleric: A cleric's alignment must be within one step of his diety's...
Druid: Must have a neutral component.  NG, LN, NN, CN, NE
Fighter: Any.
Monk: Any Lawful: LG, LN, LE
Paladin: LG
Ranger: Any.
Rogue: Any.
Sorcerer: Any.
Wizard: Any.

Roughly half the classes in the 3.5 (on which Pathfinder is based) require you to have an alignment.  But you don't hear tales about how the Monk got put in a sticky moral dilemma.  Or a Druid torn between saving people and saving trees.  But you hear numerous stories, from numerous players, at numerous tables about how DMs seem to have a woody for putting Paladins in moral conundrums.

Granted, some of these classes allow you to pick an alignment that is essentially "I do what I want, when I want." and maintain access to semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic power.  

But a point of irritation among Paladin players (speaking as one here) is that Paladins often get the short end of the stick when it comes to alignment issues.  When another class violates their alignment, even grossly, DMs are often slow to respond, if they do at all.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> That was a long while back, but i believe the party ended up deciding to bribe the Drow they had captured into telling them where the person who hired them was.




That is a good call and smart play too.


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## mellored (May 18, 2018)

shidaku said:


> Roughly half the classes in the 3.5 (on which Pathfinder is based) require you to have an alignment.  But you don't hear tales about how the Monk got put in a sticky moral dilemma.  Or a Druid torn between saving people and saving trees.  But you hear numerous stories, from numerous players, at numerous tables about how DMs seem to have a woody for putting Paladins in moral conundrums.



how many other classes lose their powers the moment they stepped over the arbitrary line?
Do you stop being a bard or barbarian the moment you stand in an orderly line to get a licence? Or will no one make a big deal about it?

Because it REALLY matters for paladins.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> People being critical of moral relativism is not the same as debate. Only theological philosophers actually debate it, because nothing else provides an objective standard.
> To be sure, people in the philosophy department argue about it all the time. But given the advances in cultural anthropology and psychology, no one really debates it.



Okay. You clearly do know that the arguments are out there, so I don't need to give you a litany of names like Foot, Parfit, Nagel, Railton, Sayre-McCord, and Boyd to convince you that moral realists exist (although perhaps I should point out that none of their arguments are theological). So what on earth makes you think that the ongoing conversation these philosophers are having with their counterparts in the other camp (Ayer, Hare, Mackie, Blackburn, _etc._), a conversation in which in which anthropological and psychological discoveries and indeed anthropologists and psychologists themselves weigh in on both sides, does not constitute a "real debate"? What is a "real debate" to you? Are the participants required to be true Scotsmen?


----------



## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> That is your opinion, and you are allowed to have opinions, but it is not an objective criteria unfortunately. Moral philosophy abounds with debate over consequentialism.
> Are the results of an action what determine its morality, or the intentions of the actor? Is it a good action to save five instead of one if one of the five is your child? What if the one is someone you hate? Does the actor need to be intentionally trying to help the people for it to be good, or is saving them enough even if unintentional?
> There are no good/evil acts in an objective sense, so everything comes down to who is judging and by what criteria.



I'm an academic moral philosopher and lawyer.

It is true that there is debate among moral philosophers about some of the things you mention (eg whether or not partilaity to one's own friends and family is morally permissible). There are very few moral philosopher who would think that consequences _never_ matter to the morality of an action eg very few moral philosophers would think that an unsuccessful attempted murder is as culpable as an actual murder. And the view that there is no objective good or evil is a minority one, at least among English-speaking moral philosophers.

I reiterate, however, that the D&D alignment system has never attempted to resolve any of these questions except for the last - it seems to assume some sort of moral realism. D&D's framing of _goodness_ has always been indifferent to issues of partiality, trolley problems, the extent of permitted interpersonal trade-offs, etc. Eg Gygax's AD&D books characterise both "the greatest good for the greatest number" (which is Benthamite utilitarianism, and seems to permit fairly widespread interpersonal trade-offs) and respect for human rights (which obviously puts strict limits on interpersonal trade-offs) as modes of good action.



D1Tremere said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If a player, in play at the table, struggles with a morally challenging situation, and then reaches a decision and goes with it, taking the view that what his/her character is doing is morally justified or even morally required, then I am not going to second-guess that player's engagement with the game. I personally don't find that that conduces to very egaged or productive play for me as GM to declare otherwise.

Also, I personally don't think that it helps the situation to frame a GM declaration of that sort in NPC terms ("this is your god speaking!"); in a context where the god is meant to be all-good (which is the paladin default), this just means that the player now finds the rug pulled out from under his/her conception of the character and of the character's relatoinship to the divinity.

If a player takes the view that his/her PC has morally erred; or if a player, as his/her PC, wants to contradict the divinity - eg because s/he thinks the divinity is mistaken; that's a different kettle of fish. But these are precisely the sorts of things that will come out of a conversation at the table.



Gammadoodler said:


> Honest question, outside of systems where classes are tied to alignment and maybe certain spells, how much alignment adjudication is actually happening in people's games?



Well as I posted, in my game none. Issue of adherence to divine commandment, moral requirements etc are table matters, not GM adjudication matters.


----------



## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Well we already have someone claiming that use of an Atomic bomb is a Good act



Harry Truman, you mean?


----------



## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> The idea of objective good/evil is itself a positive claim. In order to make a positive claim you must have evidence to support it. There is no evidence to support objective good/evil.





D1Tremere said:


> People being critical of moral relativism is not the same as debate. Only theological philosophers actually debate it, because nothing else provides an objective standard.
> To be sure, people in the philosophy department argue about it all the time. But given the advances in cultural anthropology and psychology, no one really debates it.



This has aready been responded to by [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION], but I'll add something.

First, as a matter of technical detail, I think most contermpoary anti-objectivist/anti-realist moral philosophers would not be _relativists_ but rather some form of expressivist/emotivist/subjectivist. (Though relativism has had something of a resurgence.)

But the mainstream position remains moral objectivism/realism, and not grounded on any sort of theological basis. Anyone who thinks otherwise is (in my view) clearly out of touch with contemorary philosophy departments in the US, UK, Australia and other parts of the analytic philosophical world.

My take would be that the main reason philosophers are objectivists is because (i) moral reasoning is just that - reasoning, and hence constrained and guided by reasons - and (ii) because establishing a plausible non-objectivist semantics is _hard_ (and Blackburn's version, which is the best known, is open to very severe technical objections).

And for the sake of clarity: I have expressed no opinion of my own as to whether moral judgement is objective or not, relativist or not. I have views, and might reply to a PM, but they are OT for this thread. My point is simply that the default opinion among contemporary analytic philosophers is some form of non-theological moral realism.


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## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> The overall question in my mind, such as it is, is how one distinguishes the CG and NG paladins from the LG paladin invoking "higher law."



By the reasons they put forward, and the outcomes they defend.

A LG paladin who rejects a command (say) to execute an innocent person, on grounds that the giving of the command reveals the one who gave it as unfit to hold office, _does not object_ to holding office in general, to the notion of command, etc. His/her objection is that (eg) the would-be ruler is, in fact, destroying the community whose welfare s/he is expected to foster by giving commands of that sort.

This paladin will, eg, seek out the true holder of the office (which, in a suitably dramatic fantasy adventure scenario, might be someone who was usurped, or overlooked for the throne, etc) and seek to restore that person, thus restoring justice in the realm.

Whereas a CG paladin will not be interested in the integrity of the office, its proper holder, etc - indeed, this person would want scare quotes around "integrity" (of the office), "proper" (holder of the office) and the like because s/he thinks that these social structures, hierarchies etc are burdens on human self-realisation and flourishing, not means to it.


----------



## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

shidaku said:


> The uphill battle is usually against unreasonable burdens.  Like, you catch your friend stealing from the party, friend apologizes, returns the item, but that's not how the law works, the law says he has to go to court, go to jail.  The Paladin is only the enforcer, not the judge and jury, so the Paladin has the choice between letting the criminal go (breaking the law) or packing up their stuff in the middle of a dungeon and attempting to escort a party member all the way back to town.  If he does the former, he loses his powers, if he doesn't do the latter (because it's absurd), he loses his powers.
> 
> These are not _unusual_ situations for paladins to be placed in.



If that's not an unusual situation, then it seems like there's a lot of awful RPGing going on. Because what you describe to me is _awful _- there's no other word for it.

_Within the fiction_ it seems bizarrely at odds with the archetype. Eg in Excalibur, when Uriens knights Arthur he declares "In the name of God, St Michael and St George I give you the right to bear arms and the power to mete justice." One of the level titles for an AD&D paladin is "justiciar". So the archtypical paladin does have the power to forgive wrongdoing, _especially against himself and his friends who join in the forgiveness_.

The idea that D&D villages also have magistrates courts of the modern sort, with public prosecutors just sitting around waiting to hear these matters, is also bizarre. Not to mention that, if in real life a police officer or magistrate can bail someone on their own recognisance, why can the paladin not do the same in the example you give?

But turning from the fiction _to the play at the table_, what does a GM think s/he is doing in the example you give? There's been some intra-party friction; the players - as I understand it - have resolved the matter between themselves, by way of in-character play; and now the GM is doing what? Deciding to punish one of the players for it? That's terrible GMing even if you don't have the broader objection that I do to GM-adjudication of alignment.



shidaku said:


> you hear numerous stories, from numerous players, at numerous tables about how DMs seem to have a woody for putting Paladins in moral conundrums.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> a point of irritation among Paladin players (speaking as one here) is that Paladins often get the short end of the stick when it comes to alignment issues.  When another class violates their alignment, even grossly, DMs are often slow to respond, if they do at all.



Well, for me at least part of the point of playing a paladin is to engage situations that will test my (in-character) courage, resolve, moral sensibility, etc. But I'm not remotely interested in learning whether the GM _thinks my answers to these questions are the right ones_!

This also goes back to a comment I've made repeatedly in this thread - I would have zero interest in playing a paladin with a GM who takes the view from the outset, and/or builds into the framework of the gameworld or system, the _impossibility_ of a paladin's aspirations and convictions.

I mean, the example you give - of the thief who is forgiven, which the GM then uses as a stick to beat the paladin with - doesn't seem to me like a "moral conundrum" at all, and certainly not a clever one. It's just awful GMing.


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## Yaarel (May 18, 2018)

mellored said:


> how many other classes lose their powers the moment they stepped over the arbitrary line?
> Do you stop being a bard or barbarian the moment you stand in an orderly line to get a licence? Or will no one make a big deal about it?
> 
> Because it REALLY matters for paladins.




Yeah, remove alignment from the *mechanics*, and suddenly the paladin alignment behaves narratively, the same way that the druid alignment does.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Harry Truman, you mean?




You could blame the guy for many things, but posting on a forum after he has died?


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## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> You could blame the guy for many things, but posting on a forum after he has died?



Who do you think posted on this forum that the atomic bombing of Japan was good?


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Who do you think posted on this forum that the atomic bombing of Japan was good?




I believe it was you.



pemerton said:


> I don't want to actually call out contemporary contentious cases, so I'll mention historical ones instead: as far as I'm aware, the US government still defends the atomic bombing of Japan on grounds that it ended the war sooner than it otherwise would have, thereby achieving a net reduction in human suffering.


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## pemerton (May 18, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> I believe it was you.



Last time I checked, I was a private citizen in Australia, not the US government! I was pointing out that the view that all killing of civilians in warfare is evil is contentious, and in fact widely denied.


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## Shasarak (May 18, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Last time I checked, I was a private citizen in Australia, not the US government! I was pointing out that the view that all killing of civilians in warfare is evil is contentious, and in fact widely denied.




Of course the US is going to deny it.  Last I heard they also denied the My Lai Massacre as well.


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## Gammadoodler (May 18, 2018)

pemerton said:


> By the reasons they put forward, and the outcomes they defend.
> 
> A LG paladin who rejects a command (say) to execute an innocent person, on grounds that the giving of the command reveals the one who gave it as unfit to hold office, _does not object_ to holding office in general, to the notion of command, etc. His/her objection is that (eg) the would-be ruler is, in fact, destroying the community whose welfare s/he is expected to foster by giving commands of that sort.
> 
> ...




Honestly those core objections by both paladins sound fairly similar to each other (damage is being done to the community and therefore I disobey), and like objections that any paladin could hold. This is likely word parsing, but in both cases the objection seems to relate to a problem with a specific component of a particular system ('this ruler', 'these social hierarchies') which have likely been established as a matter of traditional law which either the CG paladin could reject because they feel like it and it interferes with goodness or the LG paladin could reject because they feel like it interferes with goodness and 'higher law'.

Robin Hood is, I think, a fairly frequently used example of Chaotic Goodness, and his core objection is that Prince John and the Sheriff are unfit by virtue of the damage they do to the community, but he maintains allegiance to King Richard as "rightful king". 

Besides all that we're again getting to the conclusion that the character's rationalization of their actions determines their alignment which I, personally, find to be shaky ground on which to base such a system.


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## Kobold Boots (May 18, 2018)

Just wow...  this is almost like a your dad can beat up my dad discussion.

1. In a world where paladins can fall.  They fall because a deity or deity like function or power is no longer in alignment with their actions.  
2. Paladins get powers when they're in good standing with a deity or deity like function or power.
3. The Paladins' code is the general set of guidelines that define the social contract of good standing.
4. Therefore it stands to reason that the deity or deity like power is ok with how the social contract works.

There is no debate to be had here within a game framework.  The arbiter is down with rule 1 is more important than rule 2.

If you want to complicate things and have a philosophical discussion with no end and potentially hundreds of pages of replies, go to town, but it's a horrible waste of time.

Be well
KB


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## Gammadoodler (May 18, 2018)

Not sure if this is intended to be a particular reply. And if it is, the tone of "I say my piece now everyone else shut up" is hardly additive to discussion. It's somewhat ironic to reply to a discussion where you've identified replies to such discussion as a "waste of time". It is nice of you to provide permission for people to use a discussion board to discuss things though. Thanks for that.

Be well


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## Kobold Boots (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Not sure if this is intended to be a particular reply. And if it is, the tone of "I say my piece now everyone else shut up" is hardly additive to discussion. It's somewhat ironic to reply to a discussion where you've identified replies to such discussion as a "waste of time". It is nice of you to provide permission for people to use a discussion board to discuss things though. Thanks for that.
> 
> Be well




If folks can spend hours replying to something wrong that logic clearly solves, I can spend five minutes making them aware of that.  I replied to it because these wonderful alerts come to my inbox making me aware of the capability of otherwise really intelligent people to be completely incapable of basic reasoning.  If my contribution bothers you, then put me on ignore but I really couldn't care less about your opinion as you're one of the people I'm talking about.

Be well
KB


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## ddaley (May 18, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> If folks can spend hours replying to something wrong that logic clearly solves, I can spend five minutes making them aware of that.  I replied to it because these wonderful alerts come to my inbox making me aware of the capability of otherwise really intelligent people to be completely incapable of basic reasoning.  If my contribution bothers you, then put me on ignore but I really couldn't care less about your opinion as you're one of the people I'm talking about.
> 
> Be well
> KB




All I can say is this thread makes me glad that I don't play with people who agonize over things like this and cannot spend 5 minutes making the game their own.

I still base my games on the ideals of Greek Mythology, where even the gods were fallible and made mistakes. 

Funny thing is, as a DM I rarely need to bring up alignment conflicts.  My players call each other out "Wait... aren't you lawful?  You wouldn't be doing... blah blah blah"


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## Gammadoodler (May 18, 2018)

Kobold Boots said:


> If folks can spend hours replying to something wrong that logic clearly solves, I can spend five minutes making them aware of that.  I replied to it because these wonderful alerts come to my inbox making me aware of the capability of otherwise really intelligent people to be completely incapable of basic reasoning.  If my contribution bothers you, then put me on ignore but I really couldn't care less about your opinion as you're one of the people I'm talking about.
> 
> Be well
> KB




No issue at all with the "contribution" part of your piece. It's the other part, where you get offended by people talking about things while at the same time engaging in the offensive activity that seems pretty silly. But hey, if you want to continue to post about how people should stop posting, go to town, but it's a horrible waste of time.


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## Kobold Boots (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> No issue at all with the "contribution" part of your piece. It's the other part, where you get offended by people talking about things while at the same time engaging in the offensive activity that seems pretty silly. But hey, if you want to continue to post about how people should stop posting, go to town, but it's a horrible waste of time.




Correcting your point because I'm not allowing anyone to decide when I am or aren't offended by something.  I'd have to care about the people having the conversation to be offended and I don't know any of you.  ~ remember, let’s not get personal


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## Kobold Boots (May 18, 2018)

ddaley said:


> All I can say is this thread makes me glad that I don't play with people who agonize over things like this and cannot spend 5 minutes making the game their own.
> 
> I still base my games on the ideals of Greek Mythology, where even the gods were fallible and made mistakes.
> 
> Funny thing is, as a DM I rarely need to bring up alignment conflicts.  My players call each other out "Wait... aren't you lawful?  You wouldn't be doing... blah blah blah"




I'm pretty sure that anyone spending the time debating this stuff has the time because they're not actually playing in the first place.  Work + Game Prep + Game + Family doesn't leave much time to really wax poetic about a game that isn't even out yet.


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## Gammadoodler (May 18, 2018)

Thank you for your service. It's clear there is great value to be had in silencing people whose opinions you don't care about. If only you'd done so sooner..


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## Kobold Boots (May 18, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> Thank you for your service. It's clear there is great value to be had in silencing people whose opinions you don't care about. If only you'd done so sooner..




Seems like you're a last word kind of guy.  So I'm going to put you on ignore.

Note: My putting you on ignore, will result in your getting a notification in email about this post, allow you to read this post, then make it so I can't see your replies and you can't see mine.
This is a function of VB and not an indication that I have some passive-aggressive tendencies.  I really don't care if you read my stuff and I'm not going to mention anything about you going forward.  I just wish the forum had one way ignore where I didn't have to see you and it didn't affect you.


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Okay. You clearly do know that the arguments are out there, so I don't need to give you a litany of names like Foot, Parfit, Nagel, Railton, Sayre-McCord, and Boyd to convince you that moral realists exist (although perhaps I should point out that none of their arguments are theological). So what on earth makes you think that the ongoing conversation these philosophers are having with their counterparts in the other camp (Ayer, Hare, Mackie, Blackburn, _etc._), a conversation in which in which anthropological and psychological discoveries and indeed anthropologists and psychologists themselves weigh in on both sides, does not constitute a "real debate"? What is a "real debate" to you? Are the participants required to be true Scotsmen?




To have a debate ( in the technical sense) you need to establish and argument or refute one.
The idea of objective good/evil is itself a positive claim. In order to  make a positive claim you must have evidence to support it. There is no  evidence to support objective good/evil.
To my knowledge, no one has ever produced a true objective criteria for morality.

*"Objective morality* is the perspective that there are things about the universe that make certain *morals* claims true or false. An objectivist would state that the way the world is makes murder an *objectively* wrong thing to do. *Objective morality* also entails that these truths are universal."

"A proposition is objective if its truth value is independent of the person uttering it. A fact is objective in the same way. 
For morality to be objective, moral propositions such as "Killing is  bad","Stealing is bad", etc... need to be true independently of the  person who is stating them. 
Moral statements are basically statements of value. Some value  statements are clearly subjective: "Tabasco flavored ice cream tastes  good" can be true for me, but false for you." -Alexander S. King

"For morality to be objective, it  must be based on something other than a value judgment of some kind, and  it must exist apart from human valuations and be immune to them. Thus,  it would apply to all humans all the time regardless of what any human  thinks about the particular moral issue. I can’t think of any moral  issue that meets those requirements." -Scott Martin

Without invoking a deity there is no circumstance where a moral claim is both universal and constant. You can generalize elements of a moral claim to make it appear more universal, but the details still differ. If not killing is a universal objective good, for example, then it would always be bad to kill. There are some who think this, but killing in many circumstances is often necessary and excused due to judgement of circumstance. 
Also, without invoking a deity, there is no universal and objective consequence to morality. Doing something bad at one point does not necessarily change anything, and indeed even the memory of such an event is not inviolate.

All attempts to argue moral objectivity fail to get away from subjective judgement (including Kant, who proposed a system for avoiding subjectivity that is itself subjective).

That is why people argue, but not debate this issue. Much like proving god, it cannot be done without making a positive claim that has no evidence to support.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> To have a debate ( in the technical sense) you need to establish and argument or refute one.



That's what you need to do to _win_ a debate, not to _have_ one.



D1Tremere said:


> The idea of objective good/evil is itself a positive claim. In order to  make a positive claim you must have evidence to support it. There is no  evidence to support objective good/evil.



Moral realists are offering what they claim to be evidence all the time. Yes, you can examine it and find it inadequate, but if you do, you're _participating in the debate_. (And if you don't, your own position is on shaky ground.)



D1Tremere said:


> To my knowledge, no one has ever produced a true objective criteria for morality.



Not even the true Scotsmen?



D1Tremere said:


> -Alexander S. King



...participating in the debate.



D1Tremere said:


> -Scott Martin



...participating in the debate.



D1Tremere said:


> Without invoking a deity there is no circumstance where a moral claim is both universal and constant. You can generalize elements of a moral claim to make it appear more universal, but the details still differ. If not killing is a universal objective good, for example, then it would always be bad to kill. There are some who think this, but killing in many circumstances is often necessary and excused due to judgement of circumstance.
> Also, without invoking a deity, there is no universal and objective consequence to morality. Doing something bad at one point does not necessarily change anything, and indeed even the memory of such an event is not inviolate.



 Congratulations, you are... participating in the debate. (Mostly with strawman arguments, but nevertheless.)


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## D1Tremere (May 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> That's what you need to do to _win_ a debate, not to _have_ one.
> 
> Moral realists are offering what they claim to be evidence all the time. Yes, you can examine it and find it inadequate, but if you do, you're _participating in the debate_. (And if you don't, your own position is on shaky ground.)
> 
> ...




A formal debate has rules, one of which being 
• Gather supporting evidence and examples for position taken. 
without evidence it is just an argument.
I am not aware of any evidence for an Objective criteria of ethics.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 18, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> A formal debate has rules, one of which being
> • Gather supporting evidence and examples for position taken.
> without evidence it is just an argument.
> I am not aware of any evidence for an Objective criteria of ethics.



Then you need to read more of the literature in the field.

Or, heck, search YouTube for "formal debate moral relativism" and you will find concrete examples of such debates occurring. Not that they are the primary medium by which academics advance their fields anymore, but if they're what you care about, there they are.


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## D1Tremere (May 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Then you need to read more of the literature in the field.
> 
> Or, heck, search YouTube for "formal debate moral relativism" and you will find concrete examples of such debates occurring. Not that they are the primary medium by which academics advance their fields anymore, but if they're what you care about, there they are.




Then enlighten me. Give me one example of objective morality.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Then enlighten me. Give me one example of objective morality.



I gave you six names to look into. I think   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned a couple more. You yourself brought up Kant. You don't have to agree with them -- they certainly don't all agree with each other -- but if you want to be a meaningful part of this metaethical conversation, you do have to take them seriously. I can assure you, the professional philosophers who argue against them do. If you tried this "there is no debate" line on any of them, I can only imagine you would get the same response you've gotten from me and pemerton.


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## pemerton (May 19, 2018)

Gammadoodler said:


> we're again getting to the conclusion that the character's rationalization of their actions determines their alignment which I, personally, find to be shaky ground on which to base such a system.



Well, what you call "rationalisations" I would call _reasons_ and _convictions_, revealed by conduct as well as by word. And what else _would_ be indicative of a person's moral outlook?



Gammadoodler said:


> Honestly those core objections by both paladins sound fairly similar to each other (damage is being done to the community and therefore I disobey)



I don't agree with this - I think that the LG person is concerned about damage to the community, usurpation, etc; whereas the CG person is concerned about damage to individuals, power structures, hierarchy etc.

If these seem small differences - and I can see that they well might - then I think that is a view that the whole lawful/chaotic set-up isn't picking up on anything too profound or important. Which would also be a reasonable view.



Gammadoodler said:


> Robin Hood is, I think, a fairly frequently used example of Chaotic Goodness, and his core objection is that Prince John and the Sheriff are unfit by virtue of the damage they do to the community, but he maintains allegiance to King Richard as "rightful king".



I think this is one of many examples that shows that the _general_ distinction between _lawful_ and _chaotic_ is unstable, and that the details have to be worked out table-by-table, either in play or as part of the prep for play.

Upthread I said that I tend to see NG as CG-lite. A Robin Hood that adheres to the rightfull throne but is rather casual about resisting and robbing the sheriff and his/her friends in the meantime might be an instance of NG, though.

For a really clear example of CG I think you need to find a figure whose repudiation of received social structures in favour of self-realisation is more thorough-going. A certain sort of hermit, or knight-errant, or wild person of the woods, might fit this description. Robin Hood comes close, but (for the reasons you give) probably isn't quite there.


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## pemerton (May 19, 2018)

[MENTION=61148]D1Tremere[/MENTION]

I know nothing about you, your background, your education except what I can take from your posts.

But if you want to know some prominent contemporary moral philosophers who accept the objectivity of morality on non-religious objective grounds, here are some:

Onora O'Neill (Professor at Cambridge, Kantian)

Frances Kamm (Professor at Harvard, Kantian)

John Tasioulas (Professer at King's, Oxford-school Aristotelian)

Peter Singer (Professer at Princeton and Melbourne, utilitarian whose argument for objectivity is a version of RM Hare's)

Frank Jackson (Professer at ANU, whose argument for objectivity is based on his general approach to response-dependent properties)

Michael Smith (Professor at Princeton, a student of Jackson who runs a similar sort of argument for moral objectivity)​
These are just the first six people I thought of. (Seven if you include Hare.) I could mention Pettit, or Estlund (I'm pretty sure he's an objectivist) or Michael Moore and Heidi Hurd (he's a natural lawyer and Hurd's views are fairly close to his, I think), or many many others.

If you're not aware of these philosophers and their views, then you are not across contemporary English-language moral philosophy.


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## pemerton (May 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I am not aware of any evidence for an Objective criteria of ethics.



Kant purports to deduce it from the general notion of a universal maxim.

RM Hare runs a similar argument (though to utilitarian rather than deontological conclusions).

I'm not going to actually run through the arguments - Kant's can be found summarised in any introductory text on moral philosophy, and Hare's argument is readily found also.


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## D1Tremere (May 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I gave you six names to look into. I think   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned a couple more. You yourself brought up Kant. You don't have to agree with them -- they certainly don't all agree with each other -- but if you want to be a meaningful part of this metaethical conversation, you do have to take them seriously. I can assure you, the professional philosophers who argue against them do. If you tried this "there is no debate" line on any of them, I can only imagine you would get the same response you've gotten from me and pemerton.




Maybe my question wasn't clear. If you believe there is true debate, maybe you are correct. All I ask is that you provide one example of morality that is objective. Can you?
Kant never provided evidence for Objective morality. He believed a person could not be objective, and that they must rigidly adhere to a set of rules which would be objective. His only evidence for objectivity came from him defining those methods he believed to result in objectivity, but that didn't hold up very long.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Maybe my question wasn't clear. If you believe there is true debate, maybe you are correct. All I ask is that you provide one example of morality that is objective. Can you?



You now have _twelve_. I have no idea what else you're asking for. Is twelve simply too many? Okay, let's narrow it down at random to, say, Peter Singer. You can, if you wish, go to Princeton right now and challenge him to a formal debate on the objectivity of morality. He's a busy guy, but if he has the time and inclination he might accept. He will enthusiastically defend the affirmative position, and he is vanishingly unlikely to mention a deity in doing so. Ergo, the question is debated in contemporary secular moral philosophy. Ergo, when you said it wasn't, that claim was factually incorrect. Q.E.D.


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## D1Tremere (May 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> You now have _twelve_. I have no idea what else you're asking for. Is twelve simply too many? Okay, let's narrow it down at random to, say, Peter Singer. You can, if you wish, go to Princeton right now and challenge him to a formal debate on the objectivity of morality. He's a busy guy, but if he has the time and inclination he might accept. He will enthusiastically defend the affirmative position, and he is vanishingly unlikely to mention a deity in doing so. Ergo, the question is debated in contemporary secular moral philosophy. Ergo, when you said it wasn't, that claim was factually incorrect. Q.E.D.




You guys keep pointing me to the leading philosophers in the field, and i understand what you are trying to say. To be clear, my point is that none of them have ever used any evidence to support their positions. If you make a claim with no evidence, you cannot truly debate it. It just becomes a never ending argument.
So my question was, can you personally produce an objective example of morality?
Is there any action that can be shown to be objectively moral or immoral?

Singer says, for example "I must, if I am thinking ethically, imagine myself in the situation of all those affected by my action (with the preferences that they have). I must consider the interests of my enemies as well as my friends, and of strangers as well as family. Only if, after taking fully into account the interests and preferences of all these people, I still think the action is better than any alternative open to me, can I genuinely say that I ought to do it. At the same time I must not ignore the long-term effects of fostering family ties, of establishing and promoting reciprocal relationships, and of allowing wrongdoers to benefit from their wrong doing."

That is a reasonable code, but hardly objective.


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## TheCosmicKid (May 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> To be clear, my point is that none of them have ever used any evidence to support their positions.



Just because you don't accept the evidence doesn't mean they're not using it. To take a simple example, Kant's argument is, roughly, a proof by contradiction: if he can show that "It is not the case that P is the right thing to do" is self-contradictory for some P, then it follows that "P is the right thing to do" is true. This is logical evidence. Proof by contradiction has been used to establish many, many facts in philosophy, mathematics, and the theoretical sciences, going back to Pythagoras. The question is whether Kant's particular proof by contradiction is sound. His opponents argue that there are various problems in the logic which make it break down. They may be right. You obviously believe they are. And that's fine. _But it's still a debate._ Kant offered evidence, the other guys rebutted it.

If you don't like evidence of such an abstract nature as a proof by contradiction, well, first of all, I'd like to know what your opinion is of mathematical truth, but secondly, more sciencey-looking, empirical evidence is a part of the debate too, going all the way back to Aristotle. In fact, it's seen a resurgence in recent decades: check out Joshua Greene, Steven Pinker, or Daniel Dennett (and to a lesser extent the rest of the "Four Horsemen").


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## D1Tremere (May 20, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Just because you don't accept the evidence doesn't mean they're not using it. To take a simple example, Kant's argument is, roughly, a proof by contradiction: if he can show that "It is not the case that P is the right thing to do" is self-contradictory for some P, then it follows that "P is the right thing to do" is true. This is logical evidence. Proof by contradiction has been used to establish many, many facts in philosophy, mathematics, and the theoretical sciences, going back to Pythagoras. The question is whether Kant's particular proof by contradiction is sound. His opponents argue that there are various problems in the logic which make it break down. They may be right. You obviously believe they are. And that's fine. _But it's still a debate._ Kant offered evidence, the other guys rebutted it.
> 
> If you don't like evidence of such an abstract nature as a proof by contradiction, well, first of all, I'd like to know what your opinion is of mathematical truth, but secondly, more sciencey-looking, empirical evidence is a part of the debate too, going all the way back to Aristotle. In fact, it's seen a resurgence in recent decades: check out Joshua Greene, Steven Pinker, or Daniel Dennett (and to a lesser extent the rest of the "Four Horsemen").




You make a fair point. If I am willing to accept a definition of Objective that includes logical evidence then it is so. That said, most of the definition elements of the word objective, and all of the definition elements I must adhere to as a scientist, focus on the "of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers" aspect.
Making a subjective decision that a clause must be logically consistent does not equal evidence for an objective standard. Taking things as a priori is little better than faith unless it leads to empirical evidence. The main reason for my view is that a proposition can be shown to be true or valid via the structure of the argument without being true in reality, and this is greater with indirect proofs such as proof by contradiction. 
"A problem. A serious problem. Then the proof is wrong. The proof is invalid, since the contradiction did not follow from the assumption. The whole point of a proof by contradiction is to show the assumption leads to a falsehood. This is the key; if the contradiction comes from any other source the whole proof is in trouble.
Cohn points this out, but does not have an answer on how to avoid it. Nor do I. It seems inherent in the nature of reasoning about proofs. Especially those that use proof by contradiction." -rjlipton


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## TheCosmicKid (May 20, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> You make a fair point. If I am willing to accept a definition of Objective that includes logical evidence then it is so. That said, most of the definition elements of the word objective, and all of the definition elements I must adhere to as a scientist, focus on the "of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers" aspect.



This definition seems problematically narrow. Is the irrationality of the square root of 2 an objective fact? I would say yes, obviously it is, anybody.can run the mathematical proof and see that it must be true. That it is an abstract proposition, outside of empical experience and imperceptible with our senses does not impede its objectivity. Indeed, it _enhances_ it. A mathematical fact is a _universal_ truth in a way no empirical fact can hope to be.




D1Tremere said:


> Making a subjective decision that a clause must be logically consistent...



Wait, what? Logical consistency is not subjective. If it were, we'd all be in trouble. Logical consistency underpins empirical scientific reasoning just as much as deductive philosophical reasoning.


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## D1Tremere (May 20, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> This definition seems problematically narrow. Is the irrationality of the square root of 2 an objective fact? I would say yes, obviously it is, anybody.can run the mathematical proof and see that it must be true. That it is an abstract proposition, outside of empical experience and imperceptible with our senses does not impede its objectivity. Indeed, it _enhances_ it. A mathematical fact is a _universal_ truth in a way no empirical fact can hope to be.
> 
> 
> Wait, what? Logical consistency is not subjective. If it were, we'd all be in trouble. Logical consistency underpins empirical scientific reasoning just as much as deductive philosophical reasoning.




Science works by disproving a hypothesis. You create a test for the hypothesis, and if it passes then it is reinforced. If it fails, then it is rejected, and you modify your hypothesis or start over. A mathematical fact is only as true as our ability to test it empirically. Until then it could always be something other than we believe it to be. Just look at the switching of scientific paradigms in physics. 
I'm not saying that logical consistency is subjective (though there are certainly areas where it appears to break down), I am saying that the perception that logical consistency within a specific formal logic statement is both necessary and sufficient to prove objectively that something is (or is not) moral is subjective. As the warning on proof by contradiction posits, there are multiple possible reasons for it to be both logically consistent within its own rules, yet still not hold true. Even Kant believed that "There are in the idea of reason obligations which are completely valid, but which in their application to ourselves would be lacking in all reality, unless we make the assumption that there exists a supreme being to give effect and confirmation to the practical laws (Groundwork A 589/B 617).”  Kant


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## pemerton (May 21, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Science works by disproving a hypothesis. You create a test for the hypothesis, and if it passes then it is reinforced. If it fails, then it is rejected, and you modify your hypothesis or start over. A mathematical fact is only as true as our ability to test it empirically. Until then it could always be something other than we believe it to be. Just look at the switching of scientific paradigms in physics.



Every one of these claims is controversial. There are plenty of philosophers of science who don't agree with Popper about the role of falsification in science. One reason is because it is hard to see any connection between testing and "reinforcing" on a falsification approach! (And Popper himself didn't use the notion of "reinforcing" as he is an induction sceptic.)

Your claims about mathematics are controversial too. Quine believes some version of them. Dummett doesn't. Frege doesn't. Wittgenstein doesn't.

That physics should be understood on a paradigm model is controversial. And that a paradigm model of physics, even if true, would have bearings on mathematical truth is also controversial.

Claims can be controversial yet true. But given what seems to be your standard for _evidence_, I'm not sure how you are comfortable putting forward these claims so casually.


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## pemerton (May 21, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Singer says, for example "I must, if I am thinking ethically, imagine myself in the situation of all those affected by my action (with the preferences that they have). I must consider the interests of my enemies as well as my friends, and of strangers as well as family. Only if, after taking fully into account the interests and preferences of all these people, I still think the action is better than any alternative open to me, can I genuinely say that I ought to do it. At the same time I must not ignore the long-term effects of fostering family ties, of establishing and promoting reciprocal relationships, and of allowing wrongdoers to benefit from their wrong doing."
> 
> That is a reasonable code, but hardly objective.



Singer doesn't just assert it. He offers reasons.


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## Gammadoodler (May 21, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this - I think that the LG person is concerned about damage to the community, usurpation, etc; whereas the CG person is concerned about damage to individuals, power structures, hierarchy etc.




I see the distinction you are making and it seems reasonable enough. I'm not 100% sure that it's necessary that the whole scope of the CG's concerns is on an individual level - presumably they may have a family or perhaps hometown they care about as groups/places as much as the individuals in them - but I see the direction that your going, and it may just be differing shades of grey.



pemerton said:


> If these seem small differences - and I can see that they well might - then I think that is a view that the whole lawful/chaotic set-up isn't picking up on anything too profound or important. Which would also be a reasonable view.




I imagine the scale of the differences depends significantly on the comparative scale of communities vs individuals. At sufficiently small scales, the needs are likely to be more or less identical, but as communities get bigger individuals can sort of get lost.



pemerton said:


> I think this is one of many examples that shows that the _general_ distinction between _lawful_ and _chaotic_ is unstable, and that the details have to be worked out table-by-table, either in play or as part of the prep for play.
> 
> Upthread I said that I tend to see NG as CG-lite. A Robin Hood that adheres to the rightfull throne but is rather casual about resisting and robbing the sheriff and his/her friends in the meantime might be an instance of NG, though.
> 
> For a really clear example of CG I think you need to find a figure whose repudiation of received social structures in favour of self-realisation is more thorough-going. A certain sort of hermit, or knight-errant, or wild person of the woods, might fit this description. Robin Hood comes close, but (for the reasons you give) probably isn't quite there.




I think that makes sense. In the end it's pretty difficult since character choices drive alignment and not the other way around. As such there is necessarily going to be a gradient where one chaotic character may be slightly more or less chaotic than another and likewise for lawful characters.



pemerton said:


> Well, what you call "rationalisations" I would call _reasons_ and _convictions_, revealed by conduct as well as by word. And what else _would_ be indicative of a person's moral outlook?




I see what you're saying here, since there is a certain negative connotation associated with "rationalization". Functionally though it operates in the same way as "reasons" and "convictions" , which is to say, it operates _internally_ unless there is specific effort made to externalize it. That's pretty par for the course for RPG characters and typically wouldn't matter that much beyond table-specific role-playing impacts. It does get sticky, though, when mechanics are married to alignment in such a way that _why_ you do something may matter as much as _what_ you do. Since players and the DM are not deities or cosmic forces that can suss out a character's motivations on their own, a weird space opens up where a paladin has to metacommunicate to aid in evidencing alignment adherence. This is the reason why I'd find using such a system "shaky ground." Of course, when alignment and mechanics are divorced, this is a lot simpler.


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## Tallifer (May 22, 2018)

I for one am very glad that paladins must be Lawful Good. Players who want to play other alignments can play another of the countless other classes. I think rectitude is the main point of paladinhood, eg. Galahad, Parsifal, Jeanne d'Arc, Saint Louis, Don Quixote. Of course it would also be interesting to play a fallen paladin who loses his divine powers, such as the adulterous Lancelot who went mad for a time.

View attachment 97735


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