Paladins of Lawful Neutral deities - any sense at all?

Remove all ads!

As a rule, one step difference in alignment is allowed. This means that a paladin can follow LG, NG and LN deities, plus a limited number of CG ones.

NG isn't maybe ideal, but it's quite reasonable. A deity could for whatever reason demand more discipline from a follower than from himself. Or could accept a paladin follower for what he is - although choosing people like before birth might be a bit tricky here... Anyway, things like healing and turning undead are based on positive energy, which means Good. Immunities are gifts, special favour of the deity. Whatever alignment can get that, so Lawful or not doesn't matter.

But LN? Why would a non-Good deity demand a paladin to be Good himself? Sure, an LN deity could find some common tongue with a paladin - both being Lawful and in many cases both combating Evil. Helm and St Cuthberth, the two most common LN paladin deities don't accept Evil followers, and Helm doesn't allow Neutral clerics to rebuke undead - only turn. But there are other Lawful Neutral ones. Heck, even Wee Jas.

If a deity accepted and endorsed LE clerics, how would a paladin be supposed to act around them? And, again, why would a Neutral deity demand someone to be Good-aligned? Why would a goody goody paladin serve a deity who isn't Good?

 

Uhm, the one step difference in alignment is for clerics and what diety they take after. Paladins have an alignment restriction for Lawful Good and LG alone. This is basic DND, so I'm guessing I'm missing a point here, 'cause I know that you would know this chev

But aside from that, with the exception of maybe NG, none of the other alignments fit the concept of a Paladin. A god's champion, yes, but a paladin? No. You know, the whole code of conduct thing

 

Heck, It's not even that easy. The one step difference varies between gods. Helm (LN) takes Lawful followers only, Lathander (NG) takes Good followers only, Lolth (CE) takes Evil and CN followers only.

I just don't get it with paladins, and I agree with Chev. It is weird that paladins would get along with evil priests of Helm.
LG - easy to understand why
NG - as Chev said - the deity might want his or her paladins to be definitely obedient
CG - even that can be understood - either the deity is Chaotic in a non-rebellious sense of the word, or that he or she (being Good) accepts social order when it serves good, so in that case is accepting of paladins (living in such societies).

But LN - I'm stumped, I wonder if anyone at WotC has been considering altering the rules somewhat or at least clearer definition...

 

@Faragon: No, there are paladins of Mystra (NG), Lathander (NG), Helm (LN), Kelemvor (LN), St Cuthbert (LN), Pelor (NG) and some others. The one step rule is the same as for clerics. It's not just a 3E thing... 2E books already stated you needed to follow a Good or a Lawful deity. That was the most basic statement. It made you wonder about CG or LE, hehe. Well, reading a bit further into 2E one could find out that LE wasn't an option. No clearness on CG, except when the actual one-step rule was used. I guess rules which tell you what alignment specifically your deity can have are superior to the one step rule of mostly practical significance. So there's no such thing as a ban on CG deity on the account of their Chaotic alignment. It's just impractical and doesn't make much sense. Especially if the deity has Chaos as a domain. Cast Protection from Chaos to protect yourself from your deity... brilliant.

@toughluck: Helm doesn't take evil priests. If a game has LE priests of Helm, it gets it wrong. Helm is about the most anti-evil deity, he just isn't a goody on his own. He doesn't totally lack compassion, especially for children, he just isn't Good-aligned. I can see a paladin working with his church or even for it... but actually to be a paladin of Helm? He favours Good people over Evil people, sure. But I see no reason for him to demand Good alignment from any category of his servants.

As for CG... well, one exception is Sune. Well, I could see her thinking oh well, I'm a bard girl and he's a big big knight. He has to have some resolve. Another is Selune. Don't know why she would need or want paladins. Rangers yes, but paladins?

Yet another thing are the elven gods. They're almost all CG and most of them have the Chaos domain. If you find an elven paladin who lives in a normal elven society, he's most likely a paladin of Corellon Larethian.

Heck, I've even found a paladin of Tempus (CN!) once in Google, although I'm pretty sure it was a house rule or a misconception. Then paladin of Lliira (CG), Tymora (CG), heck... even Sharess (CG deity of carnal fun). Actually, some paladin of Sylvanus (N), as well as Eldath (N), Gond (N), ... You could also find some paladins of Waukeen (TN deity of trade).

[ December 27, 2004, 14:56: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting clearly states that deities of paladin's must be LG, LN or NG, with the exception of Sune, so I guess paladins worshipping Selune or elven gods are out of the question. The elven paladin would most likely worship a human deity and not Corellon Larethian. Those example you found with Google are utter crap.

Secondly, Helm (strangely enough) does accept LE clerics according to Faiths and Pantheons.

Thirdly, aren't you twisting things a little? You wonderer "Why would a non-Good deity demand a paladin to be Good himself?" I don't think this is the case, because the god does not demand his followers to be good, he however accepts paladin and being good comes with the job. The god accepts LN followers and probably also LN paladins, but since that doesn't exist according to the D&D rules, the paladin must therefor be of good alignment. So, it is more a prerequisite of the paladin class, than it is demanded by the god.

 

The problem with exceptions is that quite often they aren't mentioned along with the main rule, but just pop up somewhere else. Then you also get house rules... With Lliira, they might have pursued an analogy to Sune - they are quite similar. I know that sometimes in some worlds paladins follow war deities even if they aren't within one step difference. Perhaps that's why someone came up with Tempus - although FR has a number of LG deities fitting a warrior, and the militant guardian Helm (LN), and the fiercely anti-undead Lathander (NG).

As for Helm, I'm sure I've read somewhere that he forbids rebuking and commanding undead. As for not allowing LE clerics, I'm a bit less sure on this one. St Cuthbert, the Greyhawk Helm-style deity doesn't allow evil clerics. Why would Helm preach watchfulness against evil at your doorstep and have evil clerics at the same time? That would make no sense.

Deity grants power conditional on meeting some requirements. It could accept a paladin of a different deity, especially one who has fallen from grace without losing the LG alignment, and reinstate the spells and powers, and it could accept a paladin of no particular deity to be its own paladin from here on, but such occurences would be extremely rare in comparison to paladins who are born and die paladins of one and always the same deity.

Agreed, but what use of paladins then? The deity can always have a champion prestige class of some sort, or clerics with domains like destruction (smiting).

 

Ah yes, Forgotten Realms. From the large amount of core dieties mentioned in your first post, I assumed you meant Core only.

 

No, the one step alignment applies to Core as well. You do have paladins of the NG Pelor and there's even one paladin demigod or lesser power subordinate of Pelor listed in the Greyhawk pantheon.

 

I see no reason why a god can’t form his own paladins from scratch, since the general ideology of a paladin and god like Helm or St. Cuthbert lay pretty close together. If you for example have a class-less young lawful good man, who worships one of the above mentioned gods, the god could give him recognition as a loyal follower (considering he meets the requirements) and grant him special powers. Instead of becoming a cleric, he becomes a paladin in the service of his god.

As you might also have noticed in the bit above, I see classes as a more or less active choice which the character makes. If the god gives him recognition as a follower, the character has a choice what to do with it. What the exact blessing is going to be depends on the path the character is going to walk (like clerics getting more spells, paladins getting immunities). Besides being able to become one of the many different flavours of cleric, he can also become a holy crusader, which allows him to be in service of his deity, and follow a stricter code to uphold good, that other followers do not. But I think I’m starting to stray from the original topic here…

This might not seem as a very convincing argument, but we use paladins just because they are there. You could of course use a stream lined cleric instead of a paladin following a LN deity, but that would mean that you could do the same for a paladin of a LG deity as well. Following this pattern of thinking, most classes are just one form of another class.


Re-reading your original post made me notice this sentence:

All in all, I think it is just because they need each other. A god needs followers and a character needs to be given his powers by a god. Both may think the other isn’t perfect, but they share the same goal and I think that’s the most important aspect here.

 

But what about falling from grace for not being Good enough? Seeing an NG deity make a paladin fall for not being Lawful enough is already much. But, let's say, a paladin of Helm falling for becoming Lawful Neutral like his own patron is?

 

Good question.

Falling from grace has nothing to do with the deity in my opinion, but is solely paladin business. The paladin has obligations to his deity, but also to his paladin side (which aren't always the same if he follows a LN diety). Following your deity stands above being a paladin, therefore you can fall from grace, without losing the favour of your deity, but if you abandon your deity, you loose both. A deity like Helm does not force you to be lawful good and will still see you as a loyal follower if you turn lawful neutral, but your fellow paladins will not longer see you as one of them.

The deity does not let the paladin fall from grace, but he falls from paladinhood for not following his code. It is not up for the deity to decide who remains a paladin and who doesn't. If a paladin follows the code he remains a paladin; if he however doesn't follow his code anymore, the deity can’t say: "you're not longer lawful good, but neither am I, so you can still be a paladin."

I think we need to separate being paladin and following a non lawful good deity in these cases. Your deity may be a little more flexible in what he thinks is allowed and not, but the paladin must follow his code, just like every other paladin.

 

But other paladins have no control over your source of divine powers.

The power comes right from the deity's own reservoir. If the deity says you aren't getting any, you aren't getting any. Another deity can accept you and reinstate your spells, but again - this is deity business.

More or less, yeah. But we still have a mighty inconsistency here.