A Paladin cannot be Lawful Neutral or anything but Lawful Good.
Being lawful does not in itself describe the set of rules you follow, it just means you follow and believe in rules, leadership, and order - whether set by a government, yourself, or even an evil Thieves guild.
Being neutral means you do not believe in pursuing good goals, other than for yourself, but you also do not subscribe in believing in doing evil deeds.
A Paladin follows laws set to protect the innocent and serve justice to evil. Their moral code is to be a do-gooder, helping the weak and poor, and protect them from 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 would be a plain-Jane Fighter. A Paladin is granted healing powers by his deity, to do good deeds with. Good deities would not grant healing powers to someone who did whatever they want.
A deity that was neutral, and granted powers to someone as long as they remained Lawful to the deity could exist, but it wouldn't be a Paladin, it would be another type of knight.
2nd Ed D&D wasn't designed with the intent that every character type should have its own class. Characters classes basically either just encompass a set a related skills and abilities or represent a literary stereotype. You are intended to pick the class that fits your character idea the best.
There is a class for a neutral paladin / knight type already: fighter. There is an option for that knight to have holy powers: fighter / cleric.
The reason paladins get their own class is not because of any quest to give us a customized option for every character permutation. It's because there is a specific literary stereotype that often occurs in medieval fantasy: the white knight ideal.
The tides have shifted since 2nd Ed. Back then, the differences in characters manifested in how you played them. Nowadays, people rely much more upon what is written on character sheets to individualize their characters.
The "neutral paladin" concept is very appropriate for modern RPGs. It seems very anachronistic (out of place) for resurrected games from 14 years ago.
I completely disagree. I think 2nd Edition rules had more defined classes than modern RPG's do. Games like Oblivion blend every class into one walking Superman character. I really don't care for that at all. I prefer defined roles.
I completely disagree. I think 2nd Edition rules had more defined classes than modern RPG's do. Games like Oblivion blend every class into one walking Superman character. I really don't care for that at all. I prefer defined roles.
Err, oh yeah. Forgot video games. I was comparing to modern PnP games that have 50 supplements and a class for every character variation you can think of.
still the neutral "paladin" (that he is not) needs a different name then. it makes no sense to me to put a different meaning into the term paladin. You dont call a virgin a hooker;)
So heres one thing thats intriguing according to alignment descriptions:
Lauwful Neutrals will kill anyone they are ordered to by the goverment, or anyone that gets in their way of following their orders regardless of whether the action is good or evil.
Chaotic Neutrals strive for personal satisfaction, pleasure and anything that will further themselves at the risk of others and breaking the law, however they draw the line if their satisfaction would lead to the death of an innocent, and they do not engage in killing innocent people.
Neutral Evils only kill people if they can get away with it, but only with a motive such as vengeance or revenge. They are not pychopathic killers that will kill anyone without a reason, that is chaotic evil.
So judging by these, the actions of a Lawful Neutral character can be far more immoral, and they will kill people based on simply being given an order to do so regardless of whether it is right or wrong, while chaotic neutrals exhibit a greater sense of morality and not allowing the law to influence their decisions at all, and neutral evils always have a reason based on their personal emotions to kill people, even though such a thing is always considered an act of evil.
Interestingly, a Lawful Neutral person will willingly serve a Lawful Evil ruler, and abide to and follow any act of evil that is requested by the ruler without once stopping to consider the morality or intentions of their actions. A lawful neutral person can potentially kill far far many more people than either Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil peoplem, without once thinking that what they are doing is wrong and without questioning the authority that gives them the orders to kill those people. Bounty hunters and executioners would also seem to fall under the Lawful Neutral personality.
I think it would be interesting to have an order of paladins in Ust Natha who followed what the drow consider to be lawful good. Their flavor of lawful good would be completely different from what is perceived to be lawful good by humans living on the surface, since the laws and culture are completely different.
Since human paladins on the surface are lawful good when they discriminate against drow and want to kill them, maybe a drow paladin could want to do the same thing to humans because from a drow perspective it is the humans who are 'evil' just for being what they are.
The drow are an extreme example, but I think realistically most cultures would have their own concept of right and wrong and what it means to be lawful. As a result, their concept of paladins would also vary.
Lauwful Neutrals will kill anyone they are ordered to by the goverment, or anyone that gets in their way of following their orders regardless of whether the action is good or evil.
Chaotic Neutrals strive for personal satisfaction, pleasure and anything that will further themselves at the risk of others and breaking the law, however they draw the line if their satisfaction would lead to the death of an innocent, and they do not engage in killing innocent people.
Neutral Evils only kill people if they can get away with it, but only with a motive such as vengeance or revenge. They are not pychopathic killers that will kill anyone without a reason, that is chaotic evil.
So judging by these, the actions of a Lawful Neutral character can be far more immoral, and they will kill people based on simply being given an order to do so regardless of whether it is right or wrong, while chaotic neutrals exhibit a greater sense of morality and not allowing the law to influence their decisions at all, and neutral evils always have a reason based on their personal emotions to kill people, even though such a thing is always considered an act of evil.
If you only look at that kind of isolated scenario perhaps. But a lawful neutral person would also similarly risk their lives in your defense if ordered to by the government or required by the law, even if they disliked you. A chaotic neutral would be very unlikely to do that, and a neutral evil definitely wouldn't. Someone as lawful as a Helm-follower would be likely to die for you if the law required it, even if you were his worst enemy.
Neutral paladins are possible in 3.5ed. They are called Divine Champion and its a prestige class. They are possible for every alignment and every deity.
Yes, but they are not Paladins, they don't get a detect evil type power, no turn undead and no spells. They are a different class, a prestige class at that.
Let's just say (if it hasn't been said before) that if you want to play neutral paladin, you can very easily alter alignment restriction using Near Infinity (2DA file) and even can alter restrictions of items like Carsomyr in the same editor. Point is that you can relatively easily customize your gameplay with editors and avoid trying to force general change (which is not going to happen anyway).
If you only look at that kind of isolated scenario perhaps. But a lawful neutral person would also similarly risk their lives in your defense if ordered to by the government or required by the law, even if they disliked you. A chaotic neutral would be very unlikely to do that, and a neutral evil definitely wouldn't. Someone as lawful as a Helm-follower would be likely to die for you if the law required it, even if you were his worst enemy.
Thats true, but a CN wouldnt work for the government in the first place, that doesnt mean they wouldnt risk their lives to save their friends.
If you've ever watched the original animated series of X-Men and the Phoenix Saga, the character called Gladiator who serves the Shi'ar Imperial Throne is a perfect example of a LN character. Even though the empire is ruled by a mad man intent on destroying the universe, Gladiator still serves him because he is sworn to serve the throne and whoever sits on it, no matter what the alignment.
I cant stand the LN alignment, its simply a complete lack of a moral compass and only doing as instructed no matter the consequence.
I believe you have misunderstood the difference between Law and Chaos to be only a case of absurd extremes and misconceptions of what they entail Mungri. By your logic, if a Lawful Neutral character *must* terminate someone because the law states that they must, then a Chaotic Neutral character *must* terminate someone, because a law states they mustn't.
Lawful doesn't simply mean law-abiding, it means orderly-minded, inclined to keep their word, dedicated and dependable. A lawful neutral character can be a thief, and thievery is illegal, but at the same time they can behave consistently, consider their word to be their bond and generally be depended on to react the same way time after time.
Lawful behaviour contains many positive and negative aspects, not all of which exist on a single character (unless they are a planar embodiment of Law), and most of which can have both an evil and good application. The same can be said of Chaotic behaviour, this is why they are on a distinct axis from Morality, and why embodiments of law and chaos tend to have a blue and orange mentality that humans have trouble comprehending.
As such, a Lawful Neutral character is no more likely to kill someone because the law dictates than a True Neutral character is if offered a lot of money, or a Chaotic Neutral character is because someone told them not to. Moral Neutrality isn't just "Will do either incredibly good or incredibly evil actions in equal measure", more frequently, moral neutrality is adherance to the mean, neither doing extreme acts of evil or extreme acts of virtue.
Suggesting that any Neutral character lacks a moral compass at all is misguided and driven by a misunderstanding of what alignment entails; by definition a moral compass is a Good aspect, the lack thereof is Evil. Truly Neutral characters, whether Lawful or Chaotic, (and just like evil characters), can have people they care for and would act in ways seemingly contrary to their alignments (A lawful neutral character can forget their oaths in revenge for the slighting of a loved one, a chaotic neutral character can follow and serve their trusted friend to the end).
On topic, a servant of a deity arguably must be lawful, at least so far as the Deity's dogma is concerned (and to have a champion, a deity must be Dogmatic). A Lawful Neutral paladin variant may receive a power to fight against chaos from their deity, but would unlikely to gain powers for dealing with undead, healing, or harming (at least with lay on hands style mechanics, unrelated to their divine spells).
Depending if the particular body they serve is nature (the traditional True Neutrality), then a "True Neutral Nature knight", with shape shifting and a Smite Extremist feature would not be out of the question; almost a variant on Ranger. Otherwise, the most likely variant you're going to encounter would be the aforementioned Inquisitor, infused by holy faith to fight heretics and enemies to their faith whilst being deployed across the lands to advance causes important to their deity.
Arguably better to run all three varieties as Fighter/Clerics anyway, but I never was a fan of Paladin class features.
Thats true, but a CN wouldnt work for the government in the first place, that doesnt mean they wouldnt risk their lives to save their friends.
If you've ever watched the original animated series of X-Men and the Phoenix Saga, the character called Gladiator who serves the Shi'ar Imperial Throne is a perfect example of a LN character. Even though the empire is ruled by a mad man intent on destroying the universe, Gladiator still serves him because he is sworn to serve the throne and whoever sits on it, no matter what the alignment.
I cant stand the LN alignment, its simply a complete lack of a moral compass and only doing as instructed no matter the consequence.
In a situation with that kind of vow being made (where you have a LN character in a chaotic society with the only law being whatever the king/queen says it is), I can see that as a possibility. But a LN character constantly having to commit chaotic evil deeds or serve laws controlled in chaotic ways also wouldn't be happy - I could certainly imagine them helping to alter a system with a ruler who utilized the law solely to serve their own personal gain. If anything is important to a LN character it's that the letter of law is equal for everyone, regardless of station.
I could certainly imagine them helping to alter a system with a ruler who utilized the law solely to serve their own personal gain. If anything is important to a LN character it's that the letter of law is equal for everyone, regardless of station.
This reminds me actually, Confucianism is a hugely "Lawful" religion, with everyone having a strict place in society; however it is the absolute *duty* of each person to tell their superior if they think they're making a bad decision.
By your logic, if a Lawful Neutral character *must* terminate someone because the law states that they must, then a Chaotic Neutral character *must* terminate someone, because a law states they mustn't.
A CN neutral person doesn't have to abide by that ruling at all as consistent following such a logic would be straying towards lawful behaviour. The only consistent thing about CN behaviour is its inconsistency.
Yes. a Chaotic Neutral character does stuff because he or she feels like it at the time. As the 2e Player's Handbook put it, if someone killed a CN character's brother, he or she might go out and slaughter the next person they see in retaliation... even if it is their other brother! CN comes closest as an alignment to being flat out insane. Or at least, acting like it.
I'm like - what's the point? Totally devoted to making sure that no outcome is all that... anything, really. Doesn't fit the role of a Justicial (TN that is) in any of its manifestations.
I would argue that obedience is lawful behaviour, but you're suggesting that because their behaviour is unerringly random, given infinite time a truly Chaotic Neutral individual will attempt to kill whoever is nearest, simply because they have poor impulse control.
Given that, I think it's still pretty obvious that assuming absolute law/chaos on someone's behaviour isn't going to work out well.
I also prefer to keep Paladins 1E. But, as I think about it, literary archetypes themselves are not unchanging. There is definitely a fascination with the Dark Knight concept. In modern times, I think of Darth Vader as this archetype. And Vader is WAY more popular than Percival or Lancelot these days, or indeed since 1977 - furthermore, Lucas was definitely drawing the Vader archetype from somewhere - partly the hero confronting the father - So anyway, where LN fits into all this, I don't know. How about an order of LN knights that consider themselves paladins of no god? Atheist Knights, who contend there arè no gods or goddesses, just powerful beings that manipulate mortals? They draw their magic from straight wizardry, which they consider a science (it kind of is in dnd), believe in no afterlife, and hold law - physical, magical, and governmental - above all things. They might have a Mission to free the sentient races from the Gods' chaotic intrusions - and history may well be on their side - they can grudgingly accept healing from neutrals only, or potions, have some secondary skill as medics, and are generally opposed to resurrection. ( DNR medallion lol ) Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )
Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )
I'm an Atheist in real life, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the BG universe where you actually interact with gods throughout the game, are the child of one, and can become one yourself. How would your Atheist knight explain becoming a god him/herself in ToB, or at least having the option to do so?
Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )
I'm an Atheist in real life, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the BG universe where you actually interact with gods throughout the game, are the child of one, and can become one yourself. How would your Atheist knight explain becoming a god him/herself in ToB, or at least having the option to do so?
To paraphrase a genius; "Just because something exists is no reason to go believing in them."
Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )
I'm an Atheist in real life, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the BG universe where you actually interact with gods throughout the game, are the child of one, and can become one yourself. How would your Atheist knight explain becoming a god him/herself in ToB, or at least having the option to do so?
In Forgotten Realms (the world where the Sword Coast exists), faith is an important matter. The Realms are managed by the gods and the gods are fueled by the faith of mortals. So, not giving faith to the gods is like refusing to pay your taxes to the government. It doesn't make the gods happy. Specifically, they throw your soul into the Wall of the Faithless where I believe it is slowly devoured for all eternity.
Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )
I'm an Atheist in real life, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the BG universe where you actually interact with gods throughout the game, are the child of one, and can become one yourself. How would your Atheist knight explain becoming a god him/herself in ToB, or at least having the option to do so?
To paraphrase a genius; "Just because something exists is no reason to go believing in them."
So, if you choose to become a god in ToB, do you not believe in your own existence? Or would you tell your worshipers that you don't exist?
Comments
Although Helm is a Lawful Neutral deity, his worshipers can be of any lawful alignment.
Being lawful does not in itself describe the set of rules you follow, it just means you follow and believe in rules, leadership, and order - whether set by a government, yourself, or even an evil Thieves guild.
Being neutral means you do not believe in pursuing good goals, other than for yourself, but you also do not subscribe in believing in doing evil deeds.
A Paladin follows laws set to protect the innocent and serve justice to evil. Their moral code is to be a do-gooder, helping the weak and poor, and protect them from evil.
Lawful Good. This would be a plain-Jane Fighter. A Paladin is granted healing powers by his deity, to do good deeds with. Good deities would not grant healing powers to someone who did whatever they want.
A deity that was neutral, and granted powers to someone as long as they remained Lawful to the deity could exist, but it wouldn't be a Paladin, it would be another type of knight.
There is a class for a neutral paladin / knight type already: fighter. There is an option for that knight to have holy powers: fighter / cleric.
The reason paladins get their own class is not because of any quest to give us a customized option for every character permutation. It's because there is a specific literary stereotype that often occurs in medieval fantasy: the white knight ideal.
The tides have shifted since 2nd Ed. Back then, the differences in characters manifested in how you played them. Nowadays, people rely much more upon what is written on character sheets to individualize their characters.
The "neutral paladin" concept is very appropriate for modern RPGs. It seems very anachronistic (out of place) for resurrected games from 14 years ago.
I completely disagree. I think 2nd Edition rules had more defined classes than modern RPG's do. Games like Oblivion blend every class into one walking Superman character. I really don't care for that at all. I prefer defined roles.
Lauwful Neutrals will kill anyone they are ordered to by the goverment, or anyone that gets in their way of following their orders regardless of whether the action is good or evil.
Chaotic Neutrals strive for personal satisfaction, pleasure and anything that will further themselves at the risk of others and breaking the law, however they draw the line if their satisfaction would lead to the death of an innocent, and they do not engage in killing innocent people.
Neutral Evils only kill people if they can get away with it, but only with a motive such as vengeance or revenge. They are not pychopathic killers that will kill anyone without a reason, that is chaotic evil.
So judging by these, the actions of a Lawful Neutral character can be far more immoral, and they will kill people based on simply being given an order to do so regardless of whether it is right or wrong, while chaotic neutrals exhibit a greater sense of morality and not allowing the law to influence their decisions at all, and neutral evils always have a reason based on their personal emotions to kill people, even though such a thing is always considered an act of evil.
Interestingly, a Lawful Neutral person will willingly serve a Lawful Evil ruler, and abide to and follow any act of evil that is requested by the ruler without once stopping to consider the morality or intentions of their actions. A lawful neutral person can potentially kill far far many more people than either Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil peoplem, without once thinking that what they are doing is wrong and without questioning the authority that gives them the orders to kill those people. Bounty hunters and executioners would also seem to fall under the Lawful Neutral personality.
Since human paladins on the surface are lawful good when they discriminate against drow and want to kill them, maybe a drow paladin could want to do the same thing to humans because from a drow perspective it is the humans who are 'evil' just for being what they are.
The drow are an extreme example, but I think realistically most cultures would have their own concept of right and wrong and what it means to be lawful. As a result, their concept of paladins would also vary.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Divine_champion
They have some similar skills like paladins like Lay on hands
They can also be of any alignment.
Point is that you can relatively easily customize your gameplay with editors and avoid trying to force general change (which is not going to happen anyway).
If you've ever watched the original animated series of X-Men and the Phoenix Saga, the character called Gladiator who serves the Shi'ar Imperial Throne is a perfect example of a LN character. Even though the empire is ruled by a mad man intent on destroying the universe, Gladiator still serves him because he is sworn to serve the throne and whoever sits on it, no matter what the alignment.
I cant stand the LN alignment, its simply a complete lack of a moral compass and only doing as instructed no matter the consequence.
Lawful doesn't simply mean law-abiding, it means orderly-minded, inclined to keep their word, dedicated and dependable. A lawful neutral character can be a thief, and thievery is illegal, but at the same time they can behave consistently, consider their word to be their bond and generally be depended on to react the same way time after time.
Lawful behaviour contains many positive and negative aspects, not all of which exist on a single character (unless they are a planar embodiment of Law), and most of which can have both an evil and good application. The same can be said of Chaotic behaviour, this is why they are on a distinct axis from Morality, and why embodiments of law and chaos tend to have a blue and orange mentality that humans have trouble comprehending.
As such, a Lawful Neutral character is no more likely to kill someone because the law dictates than a True Neutral character is if offered a lot of money, or a Chaotic Neutral character is because someone told them not to. Moral Neutrality isn't just "Will do either incredibly good or incredibly evil actions in equal measure", more frequently, moral neutrality is adherance to the mean, neither doing extreme acts of evil or extreme acts of virtue.
Suggesting that any Neutral character lacks a moral compass at all is misguided and driven by a misunderstanding of what alignment entails; by definition a moral compass is a Good aspect, the lack thereof is Evil. Truly Neutral characters, whether Lawful or Chaotic, (and just like evil characters), can have people they care for and would act in ways seemingly contrary to their alignments (A lawful neutral character can forget their oaths in revenge for the slighting of a loved one, a chaotic neutral character can follow and serve their trusted friend to the end).
On topic, a servant of a deity arguably must be lawful, at least so far as the Deity's dogma is concerned (and to have a champion, a deity must be Dogmatic). A Lawful Neutral paladin variant may receive a power to fight against chaos from their deity, but would unlikely to gain powers for dealing with undead, healing, or harming (at least with lay on hands style mechanics, unrelated to their divine spells).
Depending if the particular body they serve is nature (the traditional True Neutrality), then a "True Neutral Nature knight", with shape shifting and a Smite Extremist feature would not be out of the question; almost a variant on Ranger. Otherwise, the most likely variant you're going to encounter would be the aforementioned Inquisitor, infused by holy faith to fight heretics and enemies to their faith whilst being deployed across the lands to advance causes important to their deity.
Arguably better to run all three varieties as Fighter/Clerics anyway, but I never was a fan of Paladin class features.
Given that, I think it's still pretty obvious that assuming absolute law/chaos on someone's behaviour isn't going to work out well.
But, as I think about it, literary archetypes themselves are not unchanging. There is definitely a fascination with the Dark Knight concept. In modern times, I think of Darth Vader as this archetype. And Vader is WAY more popular than Percival or Lancelot these days, or indeed since 1977 - furthermore, Lucas was definitely drawing the Vader archetype from somewhere - partly the hero confronting the father -
So anyway, where LN fits into all this, I don't know.
How about an order of LN knights that consider themselves paladins of no god? Atheist Knights, who contend there arè no gods or goddesses, just powerful beings that manipulate mortals? They draw their magic from straight wizardry, which they consider a science (it kind of is in dnd), believe in no afterlife, and hold law - physical, magical, and governmental - above all things. They might have a Mission to free the sentient races from the Gods' chaotic intrusions - and history may well be on their side - they can grudgingly accept healing from neutrals only, or potions, have some secondary skill as medics, and are generally opposed to resurrection. ( DNR medallion lol )
Although this all works fine as an order of fighter/mages. I think the case for the Dark Knight as a class archetype is much stronger. But Ive definitely talked myself into having Atheist, gods-hating knights in my world. : )