REQUEST: Neutral Paladin
Nachtwache
Member Posts: 36
Just read the description of Lawful Neutral in BGII:
"Order and organization are of paramount importance. They believe in a strong, well-ordered government, whether that government is a tyranny or benevolent democracy. The benefits of organization and regimentation outweigh any moral questions raised by their actions. An inquisitor determined to ferret out traitors at any cost or a soldier who never questions his orders are examples of Lawful Neutral behavior."
Why can't we create the described lawful neutral inquisitor following his quest beyond good and evil. I really like the idea of a knight only bound to tradition and laws? He is loyal but without mercy for these who stand in his way.
My REQUEST: Make it so, Number one! (please ... )
"Order and organization are of paramount importance. They believe in a strong, well-ordered government, whether that government is a tyranny or benevolent democracy. The benefits of organization and regimentation outweigh any moral questions raised by their actions. An inquisitor determined to ferret out traitors at any cost or a soldier who never questions his orders are examples of Lawful Neutral behavior."
Why can't we create the described lawful neutral inquisitor following his quest beyond good and evil. I really like the idea of a knight only bound to tradition and laws? He is loyal but without mercy for these who stand in his way.
My REQUEST: Make it so, Number one! (please ... )
1
Comments
*edited for "Maximum warp!"
*edited: will the EE of BG contain a possibility for ingame fallen paladins to become a blackguard?
*edited for liking "Maximum warp!"
The "Holy Warrior" class of characters is not "Neutral"...they are intended to be the far end of whatever scale they believe in (Good or Evil)...they are Zealots for their belief, whether truely the most goodie of the goodiest two shoes or the baddest of the badlyest bad guy.
How would you describe a "Neutral" Zealot? Someone who EMPHATICALLY Sees both sides of the argument and is willing to kill anyone who can't? How do you defend fence sitting (the neutral point of view)? "Well, that ultimate bad guy just got killed so now I must hunt down and kill the most renowned paladin in the land to maintain the balance!"
Or perhaps "You believe in being GOOD?!?!?! *stabs through heart* THERE IS NO GOOD...THERE IS NO EVIL! DOWN WITH BELIEF!"
It just doesn't work to have a middle line zealot...
Perhaps it's easier to describe it this way: Neutrality, or balance, is the natural order of the universe. There's no need to defend "balance" because balance is how it is without worldly influence. Take all the people and the motivations away and you are left with balance. It needs no crusader, no defender, it is the natural order of things.
A crusader for balance would either be an abject killer, one who cares not who or what he kills because the ultimate goal is to kill every one and every thing to restore natural balance (not exactly what we'd consider "neutral") or someone who does absolutely nothing, takes no action, provides no "push" one direction or the other to ensure NOT to upset balance.
Neither of these makes for a good party class.
"Why can't we create the described lawful neutral inquisitor following his quest beyond good and evil. I really like the idea of a knight only bound to tradition and laws? He is loyal but without mercy for these who stand in his way."
This is simple, create a lawful neutral warrior, put him in a suit of plate and make sure all of your selections are about upholding law, regardless of the pain it causes.
You want what...special powers for the class? Who would provide them to you? In the case of the paladin and the blackguard they are given powers based upon their faith in ultimate good or evil, embodied by the gods. Who in this case would give your class it's special power? The lord of the land? The current political power that is?
LAW and ORDER are human creations in direct opposition to CHAOS which is the natural way of the universe but is abjectly antithesis to most human life. Even the most chaotic of creatures use their version of chaos in an ordered way to produce an ordered change in life...even if what change they intend to produce causes disorder among others or, itself, is not regulated toward any one goal.
A crusader for law or order is a crusader for a distinctly human concept, why do you need a special class for it?
--Illydth
I believe the title "paladin" is either French or was used by the French. Medieval France had a number of different titles for knights of various duties and social classes. A "bachelor" was a knight with permission to marry. A "paladin" was the designation for a knight who served closely or next to the king, making them pretty high class.
During the Renaissance, chivalry became popular and some guy named Malory(?) merged all the stories of King Arthur into a single work. When he did this, he rewrote it with all of those "modern" concepts chivalry into it making the Knight of the Round into the classic "holy knight" or "white knight" ideal.
Now, D&D was designed to include all of the classic medieval fantasy stereotypes. The paladin class in D&D is the placeholder for the classic ideal warrior of God, full of grace, honor, loyalty, and all that. They must be lawful good because, without that, you don't fit the stereotype.
If you want different kind of knight, just pull an Anomen. Go LN and duel / muti class to get the mix between warrior and holy that you want.
The neutral warrior would be zealot for law, pursuing any agent of chaos, but he would not be a "holy" warrior, instead of be an holy icon that pursuit and destroy evil where he find it, this lawful neutral warior would be a valiant warrior that pursuit and destroy chaos where he find it, whit the proper powers, advantages and disvantages of the class. I truly don't know if exist any class like this in D&D but it's a reasonable concept, maybe not for Baldur's Gate because of the reputation system, but a valid class anyway.
If you think that's bad, I remember flipping through the AD&D 'essential paladin' book or some such. If a paladin so much as hesitates before entering a situation they know to be certain death they have committed a selfish act and immediately lose all of their special abilities until they atone. As the book said 'there are few paladins who survive to old age'. Makes you appreciate Keldorn a little more, doesn't it?
I don't care if its not called a Paladin, there should be similar classes for Neutral and Evil deities.
Blackguard is there already, only needs a Neutral one now.
1.) mirrored opposites of each other
OR
2.) are they diverging and unique philosophies?
I'll spare the meat of the details for the words of others. But, for the sake of example, if you believe that they are mirrored opposites, then ANYTHING that good has, evil has an equal opposite and vice-a-versa. Thus, if good has holy servants (like angels), evil has equally potent unholy servants (like daemons).
On the other hand, if they are unique and diverging philosophies, they express their philosophy in a way that is unique to that mindset. Evil may use poison to accomplish goals but a LG character may refuse because it causes undue suffering (the good part of LG) and it prevents a foe a sporting chance to defend himself (the lawful side). Good does not have anything like poison, they have their own unique set of goals and tactics.
Like I said, skipping many details of this debate. But to bring it all home:
The history of D&D shows a trend. In the beginning, D&D philosophy leaned very strongly toward idea 2 (see above). The good guys and the bad guys did things very differently, sometimes even following different rule sets depending. Contemporary D&D, however, is much more aligned with philosophy 1. Good and evil are basically the same except one is called good and counters evil and the other is evil and counters good.
During the time of 2nd Ed AD&D, the idea of a anti-paladin was generally discouraged even as far as printing warnings against it in books. The Blackguard anti-paladin class idea did not come about until WotC took D&D from TSR.
THE FINAL POINT: The inclusion of a anti-paladin (Blackguard) is an anachronistic anomaly in BG. Thus, it is debatable if it can be used as evidence that a neutral paladin should be implemented as Blackguard, itself, is a little out of place in the game.
Lawful good - Order and law must be mantained together with morals - that way benefits society at a whole. Law must be repsected, unless law is unfair (you cannot sentence innocent person etc.). So If Paladin saw drow priestess about to be burned alive without valid reason or proof for her crime, he would come to her aid.
Lawful neutral - I don't care about morals, only about laws: those must be obeyed no matter if it is tyrany, or not. See that drow priestess tied and about to be burned? She was sentenced to death, so she has to die. No matter if it is morally correct or not (no matter if judgement is unfair, law is law)
Now a question: did neutral character really fits Paladins? Because I don't think so. Lawful neutral fits for person, who doesn't care much about good and evil, but is obeying the law and doesn't question it. Hell, as for example of lawful neutral character BG2 states "soldier, who never questions orders" (or was it something like that). Paladins should obey the law, but only when it's fair and - it may sound wierd - LAWFUL. Paladin would not stand injustice - even if It means to save evil aligment person - in that particular case I used Viconia as example.
So no, I don't conisder lawful neutral Paladins as a good idea. Hell, I think that according to Dungeons and Dragons rules, they HAVE to be lawful good. Just accept it.
Random mischief, misfortune, bad luck, accidents.
Based on Besheba's portfolios i doubt that a paladin and mostly than all a lawful neutral warrior enforcer would cover, accept or help any Besheba's follower.
But in Faerun, the term paladin means "champion of the right and the good", which isn't the same thing.
This does make me want to create a world where "paladin" just refers to any elite member of an order of knights, but for D&D and for Baldur's Gate, unfortunately you have to find a different term if you want a non-good alternative.
P.S. I am aware that Torment and Baldur's are two very different D&D games, but still...
Paladin is a knight in service of his god. The god grants the paladin some priest-like spells, so he can serve his order more efficiently.
But gods have different characters. From Chaotic Evil, through Neutral to Lawful Good. I don't see why there can't be a paladin order (knight with some priest-like powers, granted by their god) of Corellon Larethian... Or other dieties.
They can be called differently (like Blackguards), but still, there should be a class of knight with abilities similar to paladins.
Followers of a god could be 1-2 steps away from the god's alignment without problem.