I understand that the paladin was created the be the romantic, dragon-slaying, god-fearing warrior... but considering that there are PLENTY of neutral and evil gods in the FR pantheon, why shouldn't you be able to create a neutral or even an evil paladin? You know, somebody who fights for his/her gods ideals with the same fervor that a Lawful Good paladin would? I think this would be a really fun RP experience.

There is evil paladin.. Anti-paladin.. you can get that kit in TDD.

The Anti Paladin kit is also a part from Westley Weimer's wonderful Tactics MOD.

AND the Valen Mod, which is Westly Weimer's creation as well.

You can download the Valen mod and only install the Anti Paladin stuff if you want, so it is a must-have in my opinion.

I want to play a neutral paladin, not an evil one. Helm is a neutral god, I wanna be a Helm pally!

I frankly think inquisitors should be lawful neutral myself, since they lose all their "good" powers.

The closest thing to a neutral pladin, is sadly (for some) Anomen

u'll guyz will hav a go at me i no buuuuuuuuut:
i think Paladins cant b evil. If ne1 has read the D&D 2nd edition rules and seen how they describle paladins u would know. it more or less says paladins r a cross between fighters and clerics, who strive to rid the world of EVIL and hope those of GOOD and r in need.
so in my opinion, i dont think u should get evil paladins. there is also a picture of a paladin fighting thru hell and he is burning bright light of goodness and u hav all these evil creatures attacking him.
this is just my opinion, though, and every1 is entitled to their opinion. :D

wot u mean that lose their good powers???

<font color="lightblue">Healing. Inquisitors don`t have Healing.
----------------
The paladin is considered the holy of holies - but he works not for a god, more for society in general. He does what he feels is best overall for society to function properly and keep as many people as possible happy.
But, I personally think a Paladin should be limited to *Neutral* Good. A Paladin does what he feels is best for society as a whole, whereas a Lawful Good person would simply uphold every law. A Paladin should have no bias toward law or chaos, but should work for society.
Laws don`t matter to a Paladin. He doesn`t do his utmost to uphold them, but by the same token he doesn`t go around breaking them for that very sake. If it is forbidden to dance with a Widow, but she is depressed in a corner, the Paladin will dance with her to make her happy. He believes that some laws, but not all, have a purpose; so, he acts as such.

Basically, I agree with the Quest for Glory series of games. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

[ 11-20-2002, 04:17 AM: Message edited by: LennonCook ]

Oh, yeah, and we ALL know theres no non-good clerics in D&D!

Shyeah.

Well, the main reason is that, traditionally, good is pictured as a small force of elites whereas evil is seen as countless hordes of weaker creatures. The quality vs quantity so to speak.
Paladins often appear near-perfect (in several ways such as fighting, ethics and hygene) and are one of the better examples of the quality. Get the forces of evil paladins, and you'll upset the balance.

At least, that's how I heard it be explained ;)

<font color="lightblue">Healing. Inquisitors don`t have Healing.
----------------
The paladin is considered the holy of holies - but he works not for a god, more for society in general. He does what he feels is best overall for society to function properly and keep as many people as possible happy.
But, I personally think a Paladin should be limited to *Neutral* Good. A Paladin does what he feels is best for society as a whole, whereas a Lawful Good person would simply uphold every law. A Paladin should have no bias toward law or chaos, but should work for society.
Laws don`t matter to a Paladin. He doesn`t do his utmost to uphold them, but by the same token he doesn`t go around breaking them for that very sake. If it is forbidden to dance with a Widow, but she is depressed in a corner, the Paladin will dance with her to make her happy. He believes that some laws, but not all, have a purpose; so, he acts as such.

Basically, I agree with the Quest for Glory series of games. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font></font>[/QUOTE]Paladins follow the laws of their order, strictly. If the paladin was forbidden to dance by his order, he woudnt do it. He is lawful, he just dosent necaserily follow the same laws as the general society hes in.

Yeah but you've got to remember that the original type of Paladin serves the three gods, Helm, Tyr and Torm, God of Guardians, God of War and God of Loyalty and Duty. These gods might make the Paladin only fit into one catergory Lawful Good. The Paladin stands for justice. However, as you can see from the comments, Gods like Cyric, have created their Anti-Paladin who is the opposite of the normal Paladin.

Paladins are a human Ideal, the epitome of chivalry, and romantic society, they are bound by two sets of laws, the laws of their god(church or order), and the laws of the land, when the two are in conflict the laws of their god almost always prevail, however as Paladins are lawful beings if there is a law they do not agree with, they work within society to correct it, or change it, by petitioning the rulers, nobles, merchants or anyone with any kind of sway that can be converted to their ideology to correct the laws, only in the case of a lawful/chaotic evil ruler would they actively break the laws, likely causing the people to revolt against tyranny.

also, forgotten realms Paladins don't worship all three gods, Tyr, Torm, and Helm, they usually revere one of them as their patron, and respect the others, there are also paladins of Ilmater or any other lawful good diety, or in some rare cases, such as Helm, Lawful Neutral gods

Bah Paladins I would still like it if they were evil. But isn't there a palaidn in the D and D world that a Paladin seves his god? Surly there are evil Palaidns out there that were born and bred to start chaos throughout the land for their god or for the joy of it. I think a palaidin schould have three alinments Goody Goody 2 shoes (Lawful Good) True Neutral and Chaotic Evil

My understanding of a paladin is that paladin is just a word for a goody goody knight, and therefore evil knights cannot be paladins and would have a different term applied to them like dark knight, dread knight, anti-palidin etc.

[ 11-21-2002, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

I suggest you pick up the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana book, it has info on neutral and evil Cavaliers (it is it's own classification, like warrior, priest, magic user, etc) in that book paladins became a subclass of cavalier (rangers are a subclass of fighter, and druids are a priest subclass)

I think you cannot get a neutral paladin, 'cause when you're winning a group of bandit, then the neutral paladin must fight again you for get the neutral state.
And a evil paladin... uff is so bored, 'cause you must kill all your band...
I think is imposible

What I meant by serving these gods is that the Paladin's traits resemble the gods mentioned and respect them. If you see the Paladin Stronghold it has all three gods that I have mentioned in it. That's what I mean. Anyway, anyone wanting to know about the Paladin idealistics should read their description in the game as nit he manual and when you create a character. I like Paladins anyway, I can't see the point of a evil or neutral Paladin

Sure, but this begs the next question... Paladins, being lawful good, fight for the notion of doing good for either their god, or for the betterment of society... in their eyes. So again, couldn't an evil paladin fight for the notion of doing what he/she believes is right (the notion of the those in power having full tyrannical control) to either please his god or to make society better (in his opinion)?

It all comes down to this... good, neutral, evil... all just ideas of how to "best" run society. Since there are ideas that fall under all three categories, and gods that do as well, why not neutral or evil paladins?

I thought paladins were all about living by a code.

So it seems to me that being lawful is the key. Lawful good or lawful evil would both make sense. Maybe the word paladin connotes good (I'm not sure), in which case "lawful evil paladin" is contradictory - so you'd call him a dark knight - not big deal.

Lawful neutral seems more problematic. I imagine paladins as extremists (never deviating from their code) so it's kind of hard for me to conceive of being _extremely_ neutral. Is that like being a devout aetheist? You do one good deed and then do one bad deed to balance it out - or - do you strive to only do neutral deeds - whatever that means?

[ 11-21-2002, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: The Dude ]

No, you're thinking of the (rather stupid, I think) conception of True Neutral, not Lawful Neutral.

Lawful Neutral is adhering to laws, and supporting and justifying them no matter what is good or evil. It is the unbending judge who sentences an innocent man to death because he has been found guilty, and it is the constable that lets a criminal go free because the system is corrupt. It is not neccessarily evil, it is just Lawful.

an evil character wouldn't strive for the betterment of anything or anyone other than himself, his first loyalty always being to #1, most could care less for society except as it serves them, in which case it would take an extremely deluded fool to even consider that their own actions are beneficial to society. A lawful evil "knight" would manipulate the loopholes in the system as much as possible to further himself, at the expense of his competitors.

Chaotic evil "knights" would destroy everything that didn't directly benefit them in some way, and it would only survive as long as it could prove it's usefulness.

Neutral evil "knights" would use whichever of the above methods were most expediant at the moment to accomplish their goals, whether it be working within the system until it no longer benefits you, or randomly pillaging and raping the countyside until you can make deals (protection racket style) which would be honored as long as they're profitable.

an evil character in a paladinesque vein would be too self serving to accomplish anything for his god, except in the rare instance that the goals of both individuals coincide, so not only is it unrealistic, it's unroleplayable, and absurd in the extreme (of course the July 1980 issue of dragon Magazine (also my birth month and year) contains the information needed for an antipaladin character), the most despicable of all scum and they are chaotic evil, served by humanoids, the occasional drow, and undead/demonic servitors, what dark god would patronize such a fiend I can only imagine, most {evil gods} are too selfish to put up with the scheming and sneakiness that would be the bread and butter of such a character.

Neutrals pose an equally difficult problem, most are neutral either because they don't question orders, don't care about affairs that don't affect them directly, or are just plain insane (chaotic neutral) none of these classifications has the moral highground in the eyes of either society, their gods, or themselves (excepting of course the insane) to devote themselves to serving such a cause, a better course for them would be to serve as clerics of a war god (Tempus is chaotic neutral) or a god of judgement (Helm) or a anture deity as a Druid

[ 11-21-2002, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

if your a Chaotic evil sevant of a god, don't you believe your going to benefit in the afterlife by serving him in this life?

<font color="cadetblue">If I remember correctly isn't there an evil Paladin in 3ed D&D? It was called the Black Guard or something.</font>

I always thought of Paladins being any of the three lawful alignments.

A LG paladin will uphold the laws of his church/society as long as he or she persieves them to be right and good. If he decides that is church has become a self serving organisation and no longer cares about the deity, and it (the churches) responsibilites to the local people he will leave and find another more pure church of the same or a different god, or even start to work agaisnt his order.

A LN paladin will uphold the laws above all else, and will deal as harshly with a 'Robin Hood' kind of outlaw as he would with an evil one. He might leave his order if the highest members of it used ther status to escape the consequences of their actions, or make unfair rules and taxations to their un-needed benefit. He would generally side with good characters over evil ones because they break the law less often.

A LE paladin, is not really a true paladin, more a Blackguard (prestige class for fallen paladins in the DM's guide 3d) or anti paladin. He operates like a paladin though, serving the cause of his god and following certain rituals and prohibitions laid down by his order. He might well be the head of an army of evil creatures trying to overthrow or control a city, or the leader of an inherently evil country, because he is still lawful, it's just he now makes the laws. A less important one will probably be very knowledgable about the laws of his homleand so he will know when and how he can twist them to his advantgae or slip through loop holes in them without actually breaking them.

actually no, a chaotic evil person (for the most part) is self serving, the thoughts of an afterlife are secondary to the fullfillment of desires *now*, in the dragon magazine article it gave an example of a typical antipaladin scheme

first he would kidnap a princess of a noble, or royal line, and ransom her, then when the ransom is being delivered he would have it sacked by his forces (posing as bandits), he would then express his regret at such poor luck on the part of whatever ruler he was screwing over, and simultaneously repeat his ransom demands (if not increasing them for late charges), he would then take the ransom, kill the deliveryman and enjoy the bounty of having sold the princess off into slavery (she would undoubtably bring an inordinately high price on the slave market) and when daddy came to get her with siege train in tow, well that's just part of the hazards of the job, and well, it was time to relocate his base of operations anyway.

a chaotic evil god would of course delight in such things, but few have "heavens" that anyone sane would want to visit

of course no one ever said evil characters were completely sane to begin with...

and to be fair I had an antipaladin character once who went around giving kids syphillis (sp?) and that was just the start of his evil (anti-paladins can cause any normal natural disease and are at teh same time immune to all of them) so I know the kinds of despicable acts they are capable of.